"I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment," said Ze Claudio Ribeiro da Silva, an Amazon rainforest activist, at an environmental conference in Manaus. Six months later Ze Claudio was dead - gunned down, alongside his wife Maria, on May 24, 2011 in a remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon.
Renowned for standing up to the illegal loggers and ranchers who have laid waste to the world's greatest tropical forest, Ze Claudio had long known he was a marked man. Investigations into the assassination are ongoing, but few doubt he was killed because of this unflinching struggle in defence of the environment. After riddling his body with bullets, the gunmen cut off one of Jose Claudio's ears - proof, police say, that they had successfully completed their mission.
The news of Ze Claudio's sudden execution - widely publicised on social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook - transformed him into a martyr for the environmental movement, both in and outside of his native Brazil. At his wake, in the Amazon city of Maraba, admirers hung a handmade banner which read "The forest is crying".
Since 1996, at least 212 Amazonian activists have been murdered because of the battle to preserve nature or over of land disputes with wealthy loggers - an average of 12 a year.
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