ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, the rubber tappers and their leader Chico Mendes appeared in the media of the industrialised countries as the ‘defenders of the forest’. They were seen as a traditional community who had been using their resources in common and living in harmony with nature until, encouraged by government policies, cattle ranchers arrived and occupied their lands. The ranchers engaged in the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest and the tappers defended it. The tappers’ conservationist stance made possible the establishment of alliances between them and international environmental organisations, and in 1990, the state recognised their common property regimes through the creation of extractive reserves. There are now 37 extractive reserves, where over 50,000 commoners live.
