Amazon Rainforest Activist Gunned Down

Jose Claudio de Ribeiro da Silva predicted own murder
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 25, 2011 1:41 AM CDT
Updated May 25, 2011 4:15 AM CDT
Amazon Rainforest Activist Jose Claudio de Ribeiro da Silva Shot Dead
Brazilian soldiers inspect wood seized from a clandestine sawmill near the Jamanxim National Forest, in the Amazon state of Para.   (Getty Images)

A leading campaigner against illegal logging and ranching in the Amazon rainforest has been gunned down 6 months after predicting his own murder. "I will protect the forest at all costs," Jose Claudio de Ribeiro da Silva said last year. "That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment—because I denounce the loggers and charcoal producers." Da Silva and his wife were killed in an ambush near their home, the Guardian reports. (More Amazon rainforest stories.)

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