Dr. José Lutzenberger - environmental hero, family farm advocate, and opponent of multinational trade agreements - is widely considered to be the father of Brazil's environmental movement. He was a practical scientist and a brilliant orator, with a reputation for being outraged by injustice. Lutzenberger trained as an agronomist and chemist in Brazil and at Louisiana State University, and worked in Germany for BASF Chemicals. Troubled by the un-checked production of pesticides, he returned to Brazil where in 1971 he helped found Agapan, Brazil's first citizen environmental organisation.

In 1988 Lutzenberger was awarded the Right Livelihood Award. Two years later, he was appointed Minister for the Environment in Brazil. Initial successes soon gave way to disillusionment and he resigned and returned to activist organising. He devoted the remainder of his life to promoting sustainable agriculture and denouncing industrialised farming methods. An outspoken critic of modern agribusiness, he penned a scathing critique in 1998, The Absurdity of Modern Agriculture - from Chemical Fertilizers and Agropoisons to Biotechnology. Other written papers have focussed on Regenerative Agriculture. Lutzenberger died in 2002, at the age of 75.