This Brazilian activist stared down mining giants to protect the rainforest she loves
By Jill Langlois
NPR
June 11, 2023
When Alessandra Korap Munduruku was a child, her favorite thing to do was wander.
Along with her siblings and cousins, she would leave her home in the Praia do Índio village in the early morning hours and spend time among the trees of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Sometimes, they collected vines and made small toy houses from dried palm leaves, known as palm straw, the same material used by the Munduruku Indigenous people to build roofs on their homes. At other times, they would swim and fish in the Tapajós River, a vast tributary flowing into the Amazon.