Last Sunday, Amazon rain forest lost one of her most valuable defenders.

Vanessa Sequeira, a 36 years old investigator, was killed in Acre, a state of Brazilian Amazon.

Daughter of Portuguese father and German mother, Vanessa was developping a PhD on sustainable development for Costa Rica's Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center in conjunction with the University of Wales, U.K.

"Her focus was to see how people could live in the forest without tearing everything down," said Nathalie Sequeira, her sister, from Innsbruck, Austria. "She spent many years trying to get people to give value to their traditions and things that have worked for many years."
A number of activists, including union leader Chico Mendes and American nun Dorothy Stang have been killed in Brazil's Amazon because of their opposition to powerful logging and ranching interests.
But police said Vanessa's murder did not appear to be related to any activism.
The assassin, an ex-convict, was arrested on Monday a few hours after Vanessa's body was found naked at a riverside.

The celebrations of Amazon day, last Tuesday, were canceled. Her body was buried today in Portuguese territory.

We cannot save Vanessa anymore but we can help saving 'Earth's lung', following her example of courage and persistence. Help may assume many forms (including Cultural practices)...

Here are some sites of interest:

http://www.amazonconservation.org (English)

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/amazon (English)

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/index.cfm (English)

http://www.amazonia.org.br/ (Portuguese/English)

http://www.staro.org (English/Portuguese/Deutsch)

http://reservasextrativistas.blogspot.com (Portuguese with some posts in English)

Title photo belongs to Octavio Campos Salles (http://www.amazonia.org.br/fotografias)