On Wednesday, a suspect had confessed to killing the men, and police were following his instructions on human remains in the jungle. Investigations continue into the remains of the other body.
The couple, who were first reported on June 5, had received death threats before their departure, according to the Coordination of the Indigenous Organization, known as UNIVAJA. They all knew of the often violent incursions into the area of illegal miners, hunters, loggers and drug traffickers, but they also set out to explain how this activity affects Brazil’s protected wilderness areas, endangers their indigenous peoples and accelerates deforestation. .
Pereira, a 41-year-old 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. He told CNN that the Office of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Coordination of the Agency. had made a major expedition to contact isolated Indians under his leadership in 2018 and had been involved in multiple operations to expel illegal miners from protected lands.
Pereira’s passion was evident in an interview with CNN last year. “I can’t stay away from my parents for too long,” he said, referring to the region’s indigenous people with the affectionate term “relatives.”
Phillips, 57, a well-respected British journalist who had lived in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, covered environmental issues and the Amazon in the pages of the Financial Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and most notably The Guardian. Pereira was on leave from FUNAI amid a wider agency reform when he joined Phillips to help research a new book.
The planned book will be titled “How to Save the Amazon.”
In a video shot in May in a village in Ashaninka in the northwestern state of Acre, and published by the Ashaninka Association, Phillips can be heard explaining his effort: “I came here (… ) to learn from you, about your culture, how you look at the forest, how you live here and how you face the threats of invaders and gold diggers and everything else. ”
A dangerous company
Home to thousands of indigenous people and more than a dozen uncontacted groups, Brazil’s vast Javari Valley is a mosaic of dense rivers and forests that make access very difficult. Criminal activity there often goes under the radar or just confronts indigenous patrols, sometimes ending in a bloody conflict.
In September 2019, indigenous affairs worker Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was killed in the same area, according to the Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office. In a statement, a FUNAI union group cited evidence that the killing of two Saints was in retaliation for their efforts to combat illegal commercial extraction in the Javari Valley, Reuters reported at the time.
Across Brazil, tackling illegal activity on the Amazon could be deadly, CNN reported earlier. Between 2009 and 2019, more than 300 people were killed in Brazil amid land and resource conflicts in the Amazon, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), citing figures from the Catholic Non-Profit Catholic Pastoral Land Commission.
Critics have accused President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration of encouraging criminal networks involved in the illegal extraction of resources. Since coming to power in 2019, Bolsonaro has weakened federal environmental agencies, demonized organizations working to preserve the rainforest, and spoken out for economic growth in indigenous lands, arguing that it is for the well-being of indigenous groups. with calls to “develop,” “colonize,” and “integrate” the Amazon.
Pereira lamented last year the reduced state of Brazil’s environmental and indigenous protection agencies under Bolsonaro’s presidency. But he also saw a bright side, telling CNN that he thought the change would push the indigenous peoples 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. Just back from a trip to the rainforest, with his feet and legs covered in mosquito bites, Pereira described a reaction from criminal groups to indigenous territorial patrols.
“[The patrols] he caught them by surprise, I think. They thought that as the government withdrew from the operations, they would get a free pass to 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, global environmental editor for The Guardian, told CNN.
“We knew it was a dangerous place, but Dom believes it is possible to safeguard the nature and livelihoods of the indigenous people,” his sister, Sian Phillips, said in a video last week urging the Bolsonaro government to step up. his search for the partner.
On Wednesday, Jaime Matsés, another local indigenous leader from the Javari Valley, told CNN that he had recently met with Pereira to discuss a new potential project to monitor illegal activity in his territory. community.
“He seemed happy,” Matsés recalled. “I 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 would follow in his footsteps, it has been counterproductive, Kora Kamanari, another local leader, told CNN on Wednesday.
“We are more united than before and will continue to fight until the last Indian is killed.”
Julia Koch contributed to the report.