Amazon forest guardians fulfil Bruno Pereira’s mission of Indigenous exchange

A Forest Guardian activist burns a truck belonging to illegal loggers during a recent operation in the Araribóia indigenous territory. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

Twigs clawed at the truck’s wing mirrors as the activists raced through the backlands of the Amazon on a mission their fallen comrade had been planning until the day of his murder.

“When you lose someone who has an ideal, a cause, it only strengthens that struggle,” said Carlos Travassos, the rugged Indigenous specialist piloting one of five pickup trucks in a convoy sweeping eastwards under the cover of night.