“Every defender of nature is called this.”

Lucilia Santos talks about a meeting with Chico Mendes that led to the launch of an environmental “catalyst”:

The meeting with environmental leader Chico Méndez (1944-1988) in Rio de Janeiro, in May 1988, profoundly marked the path of the 78-year-old actress Lucilia Santos in environmental, social and political activism. Known internationally for her leading role in the TV series Escrava Isaura (1978), the actress has turned this brand into engagement: for more than 40 years, she has actively devoted herself to social and environmental issues.

Lucilia, one of the founders of the Green Party (PV), had the opportunity to accompany Chico Méndez during the last year of his life. At the invitation of the rubber tapper, I got to know firsthand the reality of Acre’s forest workers who, at that time, were waging a fierce struggle against farmers and land grabbers.

“We had more creative and investigative work inside PV. Suddenly, Chico Mendes parachuted into this urban context. And when he started talking, explaining how an extractive reserve should be built, what is the relationship between the federation and the land area, the land, the territory, and how all this will benefit people who live by extraction, I thought: ‘Wow, for everything.’” land.

The actress, who is in Belem (Pennsylvania, where she is attending the UN Climate Conference (COP30), said that Chico’s speech opened her eyes to another reality: “I mentioned this to my comrades: if we want to create an environmental and ecological movement in Brazil, we have to follow this man. He is the one who points the direction. Chico had the same compassion as me.”

According to Lucilia, on the same day, Chico invited her to go to Acre, specifically to the cities of Rio Branco and Zaporí, to learn about the struggle of rubber tappers in the region.

“He invited me to participate in the first national meeting of women rubber tappers and to announce my support for his re-election as part of the Zapori Rural Workers Union. That’s how it all happened,” she said emotionally.

Since then, the actress’s environmental, social and political activism has occupied the pages of national and international newspapers. Asked by land Regarding her opinion on being classified as “ecochata”, Lucilia explained that anyone who proposes to work for the environment is called that.

“Guys, I’ve been an eco-chatter for 40 years. It’s been like this forever. Anyone who decides to go into the field to defend nature becomes an eco-chat, because you’re messing with the express interests of capital. It was capitalism that gave environmentalists that title.”

The actress also highlighted that the “nickname” is not a defect, but on the contrary. He added: “Any environmental activist who questions an environmental license to destroy a river, forest, quilombola or indigenous land becomes an environmental digger. This has been the case for a long time without beginning. We either live with it, or we don’t move forward.”

In the midst of the 30th COP, Lucilia brought the scene Voices of the Jungle – Chico Mendes He lives To the capital, Pará, last weekend. The play was created during the pandemic, when Lucilia turned old recordings of her first meeting with Chico Méndez into a script.

The show is a journey into the history of environmental struggle in Acre, with Lucilia playing Valdeza Alencar, Cecilia Méndez and herself. In the story, the women tell their stories alongside Chico Mendes to a journalist, played by actor Joao Signorelli, 68.

At the end of the show, she received a nearly five-minute standing ovation from the audience at Teatro Margarida Chivasaba, and used the occasion to summon activist Angela Méndez, daughter of Chico Méndez, to the stage. Excited, the two finished the presentation with a flourish.

*This report was produced as part of the Climate Change Media Partnership 2025, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.