British-born journalist Dom Phillips was about halfway through writing this book when he went missing, along with his friend, the Brazilian indigenous rights activist Bruno Pereira, in the Javari Valley, one of the remotest parts of the Amazon, in June 2022. After an international campaign to highlight their plight, the bodies of Phillips and Pereira were found 10 days later, having been shot dead by two local fishermen.
Though Phillips’s disappearance made international headlines, he was a secondary target, killed as a witness to the murder of Pereira, against whom the two fishermen bore a grudge, blaming him for confiscations of their illegal catches.
Such is the rampant intimidation of activists and journalists by illegal operators in the Amazon, however, that it is likely Phillips, had he lived, would have in time become a target himself.
Phillips’s book is an analysis of the various threats facing the Amazon, largely from deforestation for beef and soy farming, much of it illegal but which authorities either encourage (as under Jair Bolsonaro) or lack the political will or resources to combat (as under Lula and Dilma Rousseff). But he also explores sustainable development solutions, many of which are proffered by regional players, with the aim of keeping indigenous economies viable while protecting the rainforest.
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The book was completed and brought to publication by a number of collaborators, all of whom knew Phillips to some degree, following the notes he left behind. The resulting volume is clearly not quite the one that Phillips would himself have completed, but it is not any the worse for that. Though it has the air of an anthology of essays after the halfway point, there is due care given by the various collaborators to Philipps’s intent. It is also clear that he was viewed with great affection by those that knew him.
While the fate of the Amazon is something that concerns the whole planet, as Phillips himself was insistent upon, this book is also a fascinating, if depressing, insight into the mechanics of Brazilian politics and corruption and the various strategies of resistance towards that corruption by indigenous and ecological groups. That might make the book appear just a little too particular for many readers, but for those with an interest in Brazil, it is a worthy extra selling point.
