Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were murdered three years ago this month during a reporting trip for the book Phillips was writing, How To Save The Amazon. Jonathan Watts, Phillips’s colleague at The Guardian, and others who knew him have honored his memory by finishing his book about the vast South American rainforest vital to global climate stability. The following excerpt runs today in Climate Beat and these CCNow partners: The Nation, El Pais, ICT (formerly Indian Country Today), and taz.
Dom left us with a big unanswered question: How Do We Save the Amazon? In an outline for the final chapter of his book, he wrote, “Listen to Indigenous People….the best teachers are the Amazon’s original inhabitants: its Indigenous peoples.”
Dom and Bruno spent the final day of their lives seeking lessons from those very teachers. Before writing this conclusion to the book Dom didn’t live to complete, I retraced their steps, venturing back to the Javari Valley where their friendship was first cemented…. Dom and Bruno had come here to join an Indigenous surveillance team that patrolled the border between the protected territory and its hinterlands.
In the morning and afternoon of that last day, Dom—as rigorous as ever—individually interviewed all 13 men on the surveillance team, asking them the same questions: How did they protect their territory, for whom were they protecting nature, in what way were they affected by the political situation?
I learned about Dom’s interviews partly by speaking with a member of that team, Higson Dias Kanamari, of the Kanamari people. Higson recalled his last encounter with Dom with a mix of affection and horror. ‘He was very happy to be among us Indigenous people,’ he said. ‘When he was with us, he had a second family. We looked after him. I could see the pleasure he had from being with us. Unfortunately, we couldn’t anticipate the extent of the evil that people wanted to do.’
For weeks after Dom and Bruno’s deaths, the nearest town of Atalaia do Norte was flooded with reporters. Residents wryly noted that the intense coverage of the death of a white foreign journalist was in striking contrast with the murder three years earlier of FUNAI [the Brazil government’s Indigenous Peoples agency] officer Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, who had worked closely with Bruno in tracing illegal fishing and hunting operations. Maxciel’s family believes the assassination was carried out by the same people who killed Bruno and Dom. But nobody was ever charged, and the case barely made a ripple outside the region.
As well as the double standards, Higson said the treatment of the two crimes showed the power of stories that can attract a global audience. ‘When they killed Maxciel, nothing happened. But with Dom and Bruno, there was an enormous interest.’ He saw this as a positive: ‘The media was the focal point for the world to learn about the defenders of the forest.”
Read the rest of this excerpt on The Nation.
From Us
Talking Shop: ‘The Movement Is the Story.’ On Tuesday, CCNow and Solutions Journalism Network hosted a webinar on “movement journalism” and the need for more reporting on climate activism. Moderated by climate and environmental justice editor Breanna Draxler, the event built on SJN’s and CCNow’s jointly published Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation. Watch a recording.
Social media training. CCNow is launching a free training program to help journalists report and produce social-first climate change journalism. The workshop series, which will explore how to engage and grow an audience on social platforms, will span three sessions this summer. Learn more and apply.
Locally Sourced newsletter. The latest edition of our biweekly newsletter for local journalists digs into city-level heat action plans, which aim to minimize the impacts of the world’s deadliest form of extreme weather. Check out the Locally Sourced archive and sign up to get it every other Tuesday.
Climate at the Border newsletter. Our latest for journalists working in the US-Mexico border region looks at how drought, heat, and pests, all exacerbated by climate change, are stressing agriculture and undermining farmers’ livelihoods. Check out the Climate at the Border archive and sign up to get it, in English or Spanish, every other Wednesday.
Noteworthy Stories
Quiet quitting? The federal government website for educating the public about climate change, Climate.gov, will stop publishing new content, after nearly all its staff in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were fired at the end of May. The website’s former program manager described it as a “deliberate, targeted attack” and “part of this sort of slow and quiet way of trying to keep science agencies from providing information to the American public about climate.” By Eric Holthaus for The Guardian…
Choking America. Under Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency is slashing regulations designed to ensure public health and firing the staffers whose job it was to enforce them. In Houston, whose scores of fossil-fuel plants already contribute to the city being dubbed among the country’s most polluted by the American Lung Association, the cuts put low-income and minority communities in particular at elevated risk of asthma, cancer, and more. By David Schechter for CBS News…
Bankrolling hate. Research shows 80% of right-wing groups pushing anti-trans measures are financed in part by the fossil fuel industry. A climate policy expert behind the findings says the industry’s stake in contributing to manufactured panic over transgender people is that it distracts from the “very real and ongoing” threat of climate change. By Yessenia Funes for Atmos…
Low-rent, low-emissions. Housing affordability and climate action go hand-in-hand in British Columbia, where the government and non-profit groups are working to ensure the rush of new developments intended for low-income renters are both climate-smart and built to keep residents safe from climate change impacts. By Shannon Waters for The Narwhal…
Dimming SE Asia’s solar. As the US begins imposing tariffs between 375% to more than 3,500% on imports from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, the once-promising solar energy sector in those countries appears poised for devastation. The US alleges that China has used Southeast Asian countries to circumvent tariffs on its own clean energy products. By Vijitra Duangdee for Al Jazeera…
Accountability in Valencia. Nearly eight months on from deadly floods in Valencia, Spain, a judge is investigating whether the government’s failed response might constitute criminal reckless homicide and reckless injury. The inquiry, rooted in the view that many of the resulting 228 deaths were preventable, will test “how far a democracy can go in holding officials accountable after an extreme natural disaster.” By Chico Harlan, Michael Robinson Chávez, and Roser Toll Pifarré for The Washington Post…
Quote of the Week
“If we care about climate, we’re going to have to care about trans rights. [And] we’re going to have to find ways of getting America and the whole world past all forms of bigotry, so that we can work together to face an existential threat to all of humanity and the natural world.”
– Vivyan Taylor, a researcher behind findings that fossil fuel interests
are backing trans-exclusion efforts in the US
Dispatch #7 from the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation
For several months, we’ve been periodically sharing standout insights from the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation, a collaboration between CCNow and the Solutions Journalism Network. This is the seventh installment.
Journalists and scientists are both driven by curiosity and a desire to bring people more reliable information. Yet we sometimes find ourselves trapped in a cycle of skepticism, distrust, and misunderstanding. We can, however, use our shared skills to correct this.
After years working as a reporter and editor — and then leading SJN’s climate work — Fara Warner is now the executive director of Metcalf Institute at the University of Rhode Island. There, she helps scientists and journalists connect, build relationships and understand each other better. And there are few if any areas of science where those improvements can mean more than climate change.
“Certainly, the two disciplines do things differently and on very different timelines,” Warner writes. “But the core value of curiosity means there is a strong basis for connection and collaboration.”
Resources, Events, Etc.
NPR Climate Week. All week, through June 15, journalists at National Public Radio are spotlighting climate solutions — including how climate-smart upgrades are saving homeowners money on insurance, how one Utah town is exploring recycled wastewater to address a climate change–fueled water shortage, and how Mississippi River communities are adapting to climate change impacts. Follow NPR’s coverage.
Jobs, Opportunities, Etc.
Inside Climate News is hiring a senior editor and a California environmental reporter. The Lever is hiring a podcast director (Denver, Colo.). WDAY-TV in Fargo, N.D. is hiring a meteorologist. Dialogue Earth is hiring a Southeast Asia editor (London).
The Colorado Media Project is accepting applications for two grants, one to “[provide] flexible support to newsrooms serving Colorado’s BIPOC, non-English speaking, and rural communities” and the other to “supports projects that strengthen newsroom financial, staffing, and operational sustainability.” Learn more about the 2025 Closing Colorado Coverage Gaps Grant and the 2025 Newsroom Sustainability Grant and apply by June 30.
UNESCO’s Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change is accepting grant proposals for investigative journalism that “that [exposes] misleading narratives and [promotes] public understanding” of climate change and climate mis- and disinformation. Grants will range between $30,000 and $150,000. Learn more and apply by July 7.
Applications are open for Journalism Science Alliance grants, which “support collaborations between journalists and scientists to produce investigative journalism grounded in scientific evidence and focused on topics of public interest.” Learn more and apply by August 4.
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