The Workers Who Saved the Amazon Rainforest

American Masters
Air Date: 04/22/14 | Rating: TV-14

In the 1980s the fate of the Amazon rainforest turned on an unlikely environmental hero: Chico Mendes (1944 - 1988), a poor rubber tapper and union organizer in Brazil. As cattle ranching and logging threatened the rainforest with deforestation, Mendes formed a workers union that aligned itself with environmentalism. This excerpt is from American Masters: A Fierce Green Fire, premiering 4/22/14.

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