THEY KILLED THE JOURNALIST WHO EXPOSED THE CRIMES THAT DESTROY THE AMAZON da Barbara Bonanno BNNRRB Tramite Flickr: Dom Phillips (23 June 1964 – 5 June 2022) was a British investigative journalist, born in Bebington, United Kingdom. He devoted a significant part of his professional life to reporting on Latin America, and especially Brazil, becoming one of the clearest and most courageous voices denouncing the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Phillips worked with major international media outlets and spent years reporting from the field, with rigor and determination, on issues many preferred to ignore: illegal deforestation, poaching, illegal fishing, criminal trafficking networks, local corruption, and the systematic violence directed at Indigenous communities and environmental defenders. In 2022, he traveled to the Javari Valley region—one of the most remote and vulnerable areas of the Brazilian Amazon—to gather evidence and testimonies for a research and writing project focused on the protection of the rainforest and the survival of Indigenous peoples. In that territory, criminal groups involved in illegal exploitation had turned the forest into a silent war zone: a conflict without uniforms, where those who speak are eliminated. On 5 June 2022, Dom Phillips was murdered together with Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian Indigenous affairs expert. Their journey ended exactly where truth becomes dangerous—where illegal profit collides with witnesses. Their bodies were hidden in the forest, as happens when murder is meant not only to kill a person, but to erase a message. Dom Phillips did not die by chance. He was killed because he documented what many want buried: that the Amazon is not being “used,” it is being looted; that water, land, and the lives of Indigenous peoples are treated as obstacles; and that behind certain economic interests there are threats, weapons, and complicity. His death is an international wound and a clear symbol: when a man is eliminated for telling the truth, the blame is not on the jungle, not on fate, not on “crime.” The blame lies with the system that protects profit and fails to protect life. I publish these portraits to remind young people of real history: not the polished version offered by media narratives, but the true history of ethical and moral human beings who died for the people, for human dignity, and for the world’s resources. Those who gave their lives for truth must not be erased by indifference.
