In June 2022, the British journalist Dom Phillips was in the Javari valley, a vast indigenous territory in the far west of the Brazilian Amazon, near the border with Colombia and Peru. He was travelling down the Itaquaí River with his mentor and friend the indigenista Bruno Pereira when a group of men fishing illegally came up beside them and opened fire. Pereira was shot. Their boat careened into the riverbank and crashed through the undergrowth, coming to rest in the forest. The fishermen then moved in for the kill, ‘finishing off Bruno and finally Dom, who put his hands up and implored “no” before a fatal blast to the chest’. 

Unlike similar killings in this often lawless region, the deaths of Phillips and Pereira became a massive media story, both in Brazil and internationally. Their faces were projected onto buildings in London and appeared on advertising trucks in Los Angeles; images of them featured on carnival floats in Rio de Janeiro and at the São Paulo Biennial. 

What had brought Phillips to the Javari valley was research for a book on the fate of the Amazon, which he had half written. A group of friends – mainly fellow journalists working in Brazil – have now completed the project, piecing together his book proposal, interview transcripts, field