Paulinho Paiakan, politician
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 ...