Authorities in Lima, Peru, are investigating the death of indigenous leader and fierce environmental advocate Edwin Chota.
Chota, 54, leader of the Ashaninka Indian Village of Saweto, located near the Brazilian border, was killed Aug. 31, sometime after leaving the village to meet with leaders a few days’ walk away. He was accompanied by three other Saweto leaders. They, too, were killed.
Chota's wife, 37 and pregnant with the couple's third child, told the New York Times that her husband had been killed after making camp along the trail.
Chota was an "irrepressible" opponent of the illegal logging he said takes place in the forests surrounding Saweto. He was known to have, on multiple occasions, spot timber floating downstream and follow it until it arrived at the sawmill. He would then, against tremendous odds, compel the nearby authorities to confront the "well-armed, extremely powerful" loggers and seize the timber, his friend and university professor David Salisbury told NPR.
"… Edwin was not the only person with a death threat on his head. The entire community is threatened by the illegal loggers, and now they've lost their charismatic leader," Salisbury said.
