It is almost exactly ten years since Francisco(Chico) Alves Mendes Filho, the leader of the rubber tappers syndicate of the Brazilian state of Acre, was gunned down so tragically in December 1988. He was assassinated because he dared to defy those people would cut down all the rainforests of Acre to implant cattle pasture. In actual fact Chico Mendes was only one of many martyrs who died for trying to stop the advance of deforestation across the Amazon region. He was just the best known because his protests had reached further abroad into the outside word and he had received international awards for his work in defending his beloved forest and its native people. The desire of Chico and his many fellow rubber tappers was to set aside large areas of the forest where these people could continue to live form the standing forest form tapping rubber trees to extract latex, gather Brazil nuts and other forest products and thereby maintain much of the biological diversity for which the forest is so famous. Since humans first arrived in the Amazon rainforest some ten thousand years ago they have faced the dilemma of how to cope with and how to use the tremendous biological diversity that surrounded them. Forest which can contain up to 300 species of trees per hectare and numerous other species of herbs, shrubs, lianas, epiphytes as well as a multitude of insects and other animals is not easy to use or to understand. The early indigenous settlers, through several thousand years of experience, adapted to this diversity through a great amount of experimentation and trial and error. Studies of Quantative ethnobotany amongst various tribal people of Amazonia have shown the enormous extent to which they use plant species in the forest for such things as construction of houses, crafts, foods, medicines, fish poisons and weapons. In some surveys it has been shown that these people have a use for every species of tree growing on a sample hectare, for example, for the Ka'apor and the Tembe Indians studied by William Balee. Studies of soil samples and archaeology show that many sites now covered by dense pristine rainforest were formerly occupied by Indians. A surprising amount of what we would call virgin forest in Amazonia has actually been disturbed by humans at one stage or another. In spite of this the amazing biological diversity of the region has remained and in fact human disturbance has probably contributed to the maintenance of diversity. In other words humans and a diversity of biological organisms can live together in relative harmony when the appropriate system is used. The rubber tappers, who are a mixture of settlers and Indian blood, also found that they could live off the bounty of the rainforest and so they fought the advancing farmers for the right to keep the forest intact in order to maintain their way of life. Chico Mendes did not die in vain because the Brazilian authorities have met the demands of the rubber tappers to some extent and a number of extractive reserves have been set up. In these reserves local people are allowed to extract forest products, but not to clear cut the forest. One of the larger extractive reserves nears Xapuri in Acre now bears the name of Chico Mendes and is a fitting tribute to this great defender of the rainforest. Extractive reserves have also been established in the states of Amaazonas, Amapa and Rondonia. They are not a panacea that will save all the Amazon rainforest, but they have made a difference and the pressure of poor local people has successfully challenged the rich farmers that would cut down all the forest. The rubber tappers still eke out a meager existence because the world price of rubber had dropped and the Brazilian government no longer subsidizes local rubber in the way it used to and the price of Brazil nuts also fluctuates on the world market. A challenge for future research is to develop more extraction products that can be taken from the forest without harming it. In other words to use it more similarly to the way the Indians do and to learn more about their more harmonious relationship with the forest. This would help to make extractive reserves a much economically viable solution for the conservation and sustainable use of some of the Amazon rainforest. We must strive hard to ensure that the good work of Chico Mendes continues to live on as it has for the past ten years since his death.

Ghillean Prance Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (U.K, botanist, plant taxonomy, ethnobotany, economic botany)

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