Luzineide Marques da Silva knows the location of each of the 748 rubber trees scattered in her area of the Brazilian Amazon, where she and her family hold rights to tap the trees for latex to sell to a sneaker manufacturer. So she watched in pain and anger last week as two of them were badly damaged by a fire she said was started by one of the land-grabbers encroaching on her territory.
“I see the fire engulfing my rubber trees, and I feel as if I myself were being murdered right there,” Silva told The Associated Press in an interview. “He’s burning down the trees from which I earn my livelihood, and I cherish them so much.”
