Antônia Melo

Antônia Melo da Silva (born 1949) is a Brazilian human rights activist and environmentalist.

[1][2] Born in Piripiri, Piauí, in 1949, Antônia Melo da Silva was brought up by peasant parents who taught her the importance of fighting for their land and their rights.

[3] In 1953, she and her family moved to Altamira, Pará, and settled in Conceição do Araguaia on the banks of the Xingu River where her parents developed a successful farm.

From the late 1980s, she became active in a number of organizations founded to protect the rights of the indigenous people living in the area, in particular by campaigning against the construction of the Belo Monte Dam.

In May 2008, she was a co-founder of the Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre which fought against the construction of the dam and the related hydroelectric project.