Bras\u00edlia, June 8 (AFP\/APP): Veteran British freelance journalist Dom Phillips and respected Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira share a passion for the farthest reaches of the Amazon rainforest, where they disappeared three days ago.<\/p>\n
The pair were last seen early Sunday traveling by boat in Brazil’s Javari Valley, a far-flung jungle region near the border with Peru, where Phillips has been researching a book.<\/p>\n
The region has seen a surge of criminal activity in recent years, including illegal logging, gold mining, poaching and drug trafficking — incursions Phillips has reported on and Pereira has vigorously fought.<\/p>\n
They had already traveled there together in 2018 for a feature story Phillips wrote in British newspaper The Guardian on an uncontacted tribe — one of an estimated 19 in the region.<\/p>\n
“Wearing just shorts and flip-flops as he squats in the mud by a fire, Bruno Pereira, an official at Brazil’s government indigenous agency, cracks open the boiled skull of a monkey with a spoon and eats its brains for breakfast as he discusses policy,” it began.<\/p>\n
That memorable introduction neatly sums up both men, courageous adventurers who love the rainforest and its peoples, each defending the Amazon in his own way.<\/p>\n
– ‘Sharp, caring journalist’ –<\/p>\n
Phillips, 57, started out as a music journalist in Britain, editing the magazine Mixmag and writing a book on the rise of DJ culture.<\/p>\n
Lured by DJ friends, he set off for Brazil 15 years ago, falling in love with the country and his now wife, Alessandra Sampaio — a native of the northeastern city of Salvador, where the couple lives.<\/p>\n
Reinventing himself as a foreign correspondent, Phillips has covered Brazil for media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times and Guardian, where he is a regular contributor.<\/p>\n
“Dom is known as one of the sharpest and most caring foreign journalists in South America,” a group of friends and colleagues said in a statement, urging the Brazilian authorities to redouble their search efforts.<\/p>\n
“But there was a lot more to him than pages and paragraphs. His friends knew him as a smiling guy who would get up before dawn to do stand-up paddle. We knew him as a caring volunteer worker who gave English classes in a Rio favela.”<\/p>\n
Phillips has traveled in and written about the Amazon for dozens of stories, winning a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation last year to fund his project to write a book on sustainable development in the rainforest.<\/p>\n
The project took him back to the region he loved.<\/p>\n
“Lovely Amazon,” he posted on Instagram last week, along with a video of a small boat winding down a meandering river.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bras\u00edlia, June 8 (AFP\/APP): Veteran British freelance journalist Dom Phillips and respected Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira share a passion for the farthest reaches of the Amazon rainforest, where they disappeared three days ago. The pair were last seen early Sunday traveling by boat in […]<\/p>\n
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