For three years, Javier Moro travelled thousands of kilometres through the Amazon jungle by light aircraft, canoe, bus and even on foot, in order to re-create the epic story of the greatest colonization plan ever undertaken by man. The drama unfolds through the story of Chico Mendes, a humble rubber worker who becomes the international bastion for defence of the environment, and one of the gunmen hired to kill him. It includes missionaries torn between their loyalty to the Church and their commitment to the poor, policemen forced to work for murderers, a group of Indians standing against thousands of miners who have settled on their land, and the rubber workers thrown out of their homes with blood and fire. Armed only with their innate courage and the strength of their convictions, they organize resistance against the bulldozers and the armies of the landowners.

In order to reconstruct events, the author interviewed people’s leaders who were under threat of death, landowners accused of keeping slaves, Indians who are winning their first victories against the whites, generous but bankrupt gold-diggers, and scientists who fear they will not be able to complete their research. Paths to Freedom is a tribute to those who risk their lives to win a little justice in a world that even denies them recognition of their existence.

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