Chico Mendes house
A museum.
Oswaldo Cruz collection — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Agência de Notícias do Acre — CC BY 2.0 · Agência de Notícias do Acre — CC BY 2.0 · Agência de Notícias do Acre — CC BY 2.0 · Agência de Notícias do Acre — CC BY 2.0 · Agência de Notícias do Acre — CC BY 2.0 · Agência de Notícias do Acre — CC BY 2.0
Xapuri is a historic town in south-east Acre, on the Acre River where the Xapuri flows in, known as the «cradle of the Acrean Revolution» that brought the territory into Brazil and as a symbol of the global environmental movement: it is the town of the rubber tapper and forest defender Chico Mendes. The Xapury people, who gave it its name, lived here; settlement began in 1861 and grew with the rubber cycle, when the area's rubber forests were among the most productive in the world. During the war for Acre's independence from Bolivia it saw an early, bloodless victory. Chico Mendes lived his whole life here, a rubber tapper and union leader who defended the forest and its people until he was murdered in 1988; his house is now a museum. Rubber and Brazil nuts remain its main products, and a factory here makes goods from the natural rubber of the region's reserves.
A museum.
Forest history.
On its bank.
Xapuri, Acre valley, south-east Acre state
A rubber tapper and union leader who defended the Amazon forest until his murder in 1988.