After British journalist’s murder in the Amazon, can his vision survive?

British journalist Dom Phillips’ quest to unlock the secrets of how to preserve Brazil’s Amazon was cut short this month when he was killed along with a colleague in the heart of the forest he so cherished. Some of his discoveries may yet see the light of day.

Phillips, in 2021, secured a year-long fellowship with the Alicia Patterson Foundation to write a book, building on prior research. By June, he had written several chapters.

“Dom’s book project was on the cutting edge of environmental reporting in Brazil. It was extremely ambitious, but he had the experience to pull it off,” said Andrew Fishman, a close friend and journalist at US non-profit news organisation The Intercept. “We cannot let his assassins also kill his vision.”

Phillips’ disappearance and then confirmed death has brought calls for justice from Brazil and abroad from actors, musicians and athletes, along with appeals for help to support his wife. Phillips would be gobsmacked to learn that his fate has troubled current and former UK prime ministers.

He wrote about Brazil for 15 years, in early days covering the oil industry for Platts, later freelancing for The Washington Post and New York Times then regularly contributing to The Guardian. He was versatile, but gravitated toward features about the environment as it became his passion.

Phillips often hiked in Rio de Janeiro’s Tijuca Forest National Park and, atop his paddle board at Copacabana beach, was in his element: floating above the natural world and observing. He might message friends out of the blue, sharing news of spotting a ray with a 3-foot wingspan, reflecting a wonder more common among children than 57-year-old men, and he brought that spirit to his reporting.