Paulinho Paiakan ‑ a leader of the Kayapo people, an indigenous tribe of Brazil ‑ died on June 16, 2020, at the Hospital Público Regional do Araguaia in Redenção, Pará, having been hospitalized with COVID-19.
He led the Kayapo in their protests against destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
Paiakan was hired by the Brazilian government in 1971 to facilitate the construction of the Trans-Amazonian highway system through Kayapo lands. Once Paiakan saw the nature of the project first hand, he quit his job and began to mobilize his people against the project. He took a splinter group of his home village and settled a new village named Aukre, where he set out to videotape the destruction of the rainforest and the Kayapo traditions.
Paiakan became known on the world stage, touring Europe and North America with public appearances and speaking engagements, sponsored by Friends of the Earth, the World Wildlife Fund and the Kayapo Support Group of Chicago in a campaign against the Altamira Dam project. Speaking at the University of Chicago, he said:
The forest is one big thing; it has people, animals, and plants. There is no point saving the animals if the forest is burned down; there is no point saving the forest if the people and animals who live in it are killed or driven away. The groups trying to save the races of animals cannot win if the people trying to save the forest lose; the people trying to save the Indians cannot win if either of the others lose; the Indians cannot win without the support of these groups; but the groups cannot win either without the support of the Indians, who know the forest and the animals and can tell what is happening to them. No one of us is strong enough to win alone; together, we can be strong enough to win.
The World Bank announced that it would not grant Brazil a loan for the project after this campaign and the protest at Altamira that followed.
In 1992, Paiakan was accused of raping a young white woman whom he had hired to tutor his children. He was accused of biting off the nipples and inserting both hands in the woman's vagina, among other things. In 1994, Paiakan was acquitted, but in a 1999 retrial, he was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. The entire affair stigmatized not only Paiakan, but the entire indigenous peoples movement of which he had been a key figure.