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What led Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira to risk their lives in the Amazon

2022-06-16T22:27:41.119Z


Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared in the Amazon, but they took the risk to denounce the illegal activities that affect the area.


Who are the detainees for the crime of Dom Philips and Bruno Pereira 1:22

São Paulo (CNN) --

Amazon veterans Dom Phillips and Bruno Araújo Pereira must have known the risks they faced when they set out for Atalaia do Norte, in the remote Javari Valley of the Brazilian jungle, a journey that each Once again it appears to have ended in tragedy, after Brazilian authorities said Wednesday that a suspect had confessed to killing them.

The police followed the suspect's directions until they reached the human remains in the jungle, but the forensic analysis to identify them has not yet been completed.

"While we are still awaiting definitive confirmation, this tragic outcome puts an end to the anguish of not knowing the whereabouts of Dom and Bruno. Now we can bring them home and say goodbye with love," Phillips' wife, Alessandra Sampaio, said in a statement.

The couple, whose disappearance was first reported on June 5, had received death threats before their departure, according to the Coordinator of the Indigenous Organization, known as UNIVAJA.

The men were aware of the often violent attacks taking place in the area by illegal miners, hunters, loggers and drug traffickers in the area, but they were equally dedicated to denouncing how this activity plagues Brazil's protected wilderness areas, putting endangering their indigenous peoples and accelerating deforestation.

  • Brazil's Amazon rainforest has already hit a new deforestation record this year

Pereira, 41, a father of three, has spent much of his life serving the country's indigenous peoples since joining the Brazilian government's indigenous agency (FUNAI) in 2010. Pereira told CNN that the Office The agency's Coordination Unit for Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Populations had carried out a major expedition to contact isolated indigenous people under its leadership in 2018, and had participated in multiple operations to expel illegal miners from protected lands.

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Pereira's passion was evident in an interview with CNN last year.

"I can't stay away from the 'parentes' for too long," she said, referring to the region's indigenous people with the term of endearment, "parentes."

Phillips, 57, a well-respected British journalist who had lived in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, brought environmental issues and the Amazon to the pages of the Financial Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times and, notably, The Guardian. .

Pereira was on leave from FUNAI following a broader restructuring of the agency when he joined Phillips to help research a new book.

The planned book would be titled "How to save the Amazon."

In a video filmed in May in an Ashaninka village in northwestern Acre state, and released by the Ashaninka association, Phillips is heard explaining his effort: "I came here (...) to learn from you, about your culture, how they see the jungle, how they live here and how they deal with threats from invaders and gold diggers and everything else.

Dom Phillips (center) speaks with two indigenous people at Aldeia Maloca Papiú, Roraima State, Brazil, in 2019.

a risky project

Home to thousands of indigenous people and more than a dozen uncontacted groups, Brazil's vast Javari Valley is a mosaic of rivers and dense forests that make access very difficult.

Criminal activity there often goes under the radar, or is met only by indigenous patrols, sometimes ending in bloody conflict.

In September 2019, indigenous affairs worker Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was killed in the same area, according to the Brazilian Public Ministry.

In a statement, a FUNAI union group cited evidence that dos Santos' killing was in retaliation for his efforts to combat illegal commercial extraction in the Javari Valley, Reuters reported at the time.

  • ANALYSIS |

    Defending the Amazon is a dangerous mission.

    Critics say Bolsonaro is making it worse

Across Brazil, confronting illegal activity in the Amazon can be deadly, as CNN has previously reported.

Between 2009 and 2019, more than 300 people were killed in Brazil amid conflicts over land and resources in the Amazon, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), citing figures from the Pastoral Land Commission, a nonprofit Catholic organization. profit.

Critics have accused the government of President Jair Bolsonaro of fueling criminal networks involved in illegal resource extraction.

Since coming to power in 2019, Bolsonaro has weakened federal agencies in charge of environmental issues, demonized organizations that work to preserve the rainforest and defended economic growth on indigenous lands, arguing that it is in favor of their well-being, with calls to "develop", "colonize" and "integrate" the Amazon.

Vigil for Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira.

Pereira last year lamented the diminished state of Brazil's environmental and indigenous protection agencies under the Bolsonaro presidency.

But he also saw the bright side, telling CNN that he thought the change would push the indigenous people of the Javari Valley to overcome historical divisions and form alliances to protect their shared interests.

However, in another interview with CNN later in the year, he was more cautious about the dangers.

Fresh from a trip through the jungle, his feet and legs covered in mosquito bites, Pereira described the reaction of criminal groups to indigenous land patrols.

"[The patrols] took them by surprise, I think. They thought that since the government withdrew from the operations, they would have a free pass in the region," Pereira said.

But neither Pereira nor Phillips were going to give a "free pass" to the exploitation of the Amazon.

"Dom knew the risks of going to the Javari Valley, but he thought the story was important enough to take those risks," Jonathan Watts, the Guardian's global environment editor, told CNN.

"We knew it was a dangerous place, but Dom believes that it is possible to safeguard nature and the livelihood of the indigenous people," his sister, Sian Phillips, said in a video last week urging the Bolsonaro government to intensify the search. of the men.

  • Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro believes there was "malice" with the disappeared in the Amazon

On Wednesday, Jaime Matsés, another local indigenous leader in the Javari Valley, told CNN that he had recently met with Pereira to discuss a potential new project to monitor illegal activity in his community's territory.

"He seemed happy," Matsés recalled.

"He wasn't afraid to do the right thing. We saw him as a warrior like us."

And if his disappearance was intended to instill fear among those who were to follow in his footsteps, it did not turn out as they had hoped, Kora Kamanari, another local leader, told CNN on Wednesday.

"We are more united than before and we will continue fighting until the last indigenous person dies."

-- Julia Koch contributed to this report.

Amazon

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-06-16

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