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organized a number of events in Chico's hometown of Xapuri, including a forest products fair. The National Wildlife Federation and other organizations in the US are readying plans for observances in New York and Washington DC. For information see the Chico Mendes. Central to this drama was the lingering presence of Mendes himself, the rubber tapper turned ecologist whose attempt to save the rainforest ultimately cost him his life. His story, told in a series …

…is the story told in a various words and images spread throughout the book in alternately folksy, scholarly and passionate voices. Ranging from Bishop's own tersely eloquent summation of her odyssey through the labyrinths of wild nature and human nature amid the tropical holocaust, to the earthy poetics of Mendes' widow Ilzemar who laments that the ranchers "made a hole in his heart and his blood spilled all over the wall" as she concludes that