Portuguese researcher killed in Brazilian rain forest

The Associated Press

Published: September 5, 2006
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil

A Portuguese doctoral student researching sustainable development in the Amazon rain forest was found beaten to death in western Brazil, police said Tuesday.

Ex-convict Raimundo Nonato Rocha de Lima, 30, has been charged in the killing of Vanessa Schaffer Sequeira, 36, in the western Amazon state of Acre near Brazil's border with Peru, said Inspector Joao Augusto Fernandes.

Fernandes said police found Sequeira's body on Sunday near a creek outside the remote town of Sena Madureira, some 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) northwest of Rio de Janeiro, after friends reported her missing.

He said Sequeira had been badly beaten and forensic examiners were investigating whether she had been sexually assaulted.

Lima recently completed an 11-year prison sentence for homicide in the neighboring town of Boca do Acre, Fernandes said.

"She was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Fernandes said by telephone from Sena Madureira, home to about 40,000 people. "This town is usually very quiet. We haven't had a homicide in six months."

Sequeira was working on a doctorate for Costa Rica's Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center in conjunction with the University of Wales in the United Kingdom when she was killed. Her research centered on helping poor residents harvest the rain forest's bounty without logging.

"Her focus was to see how people could live in the forest without tearing everything down," said Nathalie Sequeira, the victim's sister, from Innsbruck, Austria. "She spent many years trying to get people to give value to their traditions and things that have worked for many years."

A number of high-profile environmental activists including union leader Chico Mendes and American nun Dorothy Stang have been killed in Brazil's Amazon because of their opposition to powerful logging and ranching interests.

But police said Sequeira's murder did not appear to be linked to any activism.

Source: International Herald Tribune