Researching Marina Silva

Born in a rubber plantation in Acre, Marina moved to the state capital Rio Branco as a teenager, where she became literate. After graduating high school, she completed her undergraduate degree in History from the Federal University of Acre at 26. She developed an interest in politics and joined the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Marxist organization that was housed in the Workers' Party (PT), later helping to found the Unified Workers' Central of Acre. She helped Chico Mendes to lead the trade union movement, being elected as councillor of Rio Branco in 1988 for her first mandate in a public office.

Silva was a member of the PT until 2009, and served as a Senator before becoming Minister of the Environment in 2003. She ran for president in the 2010 Brazilian elections as the candidate for the Green Party (PV), coming in 3rd with 19% of the first-round vote. In April 2014, Eduardo Campos announced his candidacy for the fall 2014 presidential election, naming Marina Silva as his vice presidential candidate. After Campos's death in a plane crash on August, she was selected to run as the Socialist Party's candidate for the Presidency. In the first round of the October 2014 election, she won 21% of the vote (less than many of the opinion polls had predicted), coming in 3rd and failing to advance to the run-off. In the second round, she supported PSDB candidate Aécio Neves over PT incumbent Dilma Rousseff. She again ran for president in the 2018 election, this time as the nominee for the Sustainability Network, and finished 8th place with 1% of the vote.

Silva has won a number of awards from US and international organizations in recognition of her environmental activism. In 1996, Silva won the Goldman Environmental Prize for South & Central America. In 2007, the United Nations Environment Program named her one of the Champions of the Earth and the 2009 Sophie Prize. In December 2014, Marina Silva was elected by the British Financial Times newspaper as one of its Women of the Year. Silva is also a member of Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue. In 2010, she, along with Cécile Duflot, Monica Frassoni, Elizabeth May and Renate Künast, were named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers, for taking Green mainstream. In 2012 she was one of eight people chosen to carry the flag for the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Summer Olympics.