Dom Phillips

DOM PHILLIPS was a highly experienced and award-winning British freelance journalist. He moved to Brazil in 2007 and wrote extensively for British and American newspapers such as the Guardian and Washington Post. In 2021, he was awarded an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship for his book project How to Save the Amazon and was made the 2021 Cissy Patterson Environmental Fellow. In June 2022, Dom and Brazilian expert on Indigenous affairs Bruno Pereira were killed in a remote part of the Amazon while Dom was researching this book.

In 2023, How to Save the Amazon was awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and in 2024, Dom’s widow, Alessandra Sampaio, set up the Dom Phillips Institute in his memory. At the request of Alessandra and Dom’s relatives, the unfinished work on the book was completed by a dedicated team of international writers and journalists brought together by Jonathan Watts, the Guardian’s environment correspondent.

With thanks to the following contributors: Jon Lee Anderson, Eliane Brum, Andrew Fishman, Stuart Grudgings, Tom Hennigan, Beto Marubo, Helena Palmquist, Tom Phillips, Jonathan Watts, and translators Julia Sanches and Diane Whitty.