José Lutzenberger

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José Antônio Lutzenberger (December 17, 1926–May 14, 2002) was a Brazilian environmentalist.

He was born of a German family in Porto Alegre, the capital city of southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. He graduated in agronomy in 1950. For more than 15 years he worked in Germany, Venezuela and Morocco for a German chemical company (BASF), selling the same products he would later campaign against.

In 1971 he founded the Agapan, an environmentalist organization. He became famous for defending the environment together with Magda Renner and others during the time of military government in Brazil. He was appointed to the Environment Ministry in the Fernando Collor federal government, in the early 1990s.

"He was Brazil's first internationally known environmental activist, and the fact he was chosen environment minister in Brazil's first democratically elected government in 30 years was just one indication of the tremendous mark he made in that area," said Stephan Schwartzman, senior scientist at Environmental Defense.

In 1987 Lutzenberger founded a group called Gaia, which focused on global issues, and a year later he won the Right Livelihood Award in recognition of his work.

Lutzenberger died in 2002 at the age of 75. He was buried as he wished: naked, without a coffin, close to a tree in a farm he restored, the Rincão Gaia, in Pantano Grande, also in the Rio Grande do Sul state.