How to Save the Amazon book launch and panel discussion
About
An urgent work of reportage which takes the reader deep inside the Amazon rainforest, and shows that even if you kill a journalist, you cannot silence a story. Join Jonathan Watts, Alessandra Sampaio, Beto Marubo and Sian Phillips (with chair Jos Barlow, Professor of Conservation Science at Lancaster University) to remember the incredible journalist, Dom Phillips, and learn how we can fight ecological destruction and stand in solidarity with the Earth’s environmental defenders. Free, all welcome.Date
Tuesday 3 June 2025 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (UTC+01)
On 5 June 2022, award-winning journalist Dom Phillips was working on this book, alongside the indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, when they were both shot. They are believed to have been assassinated by one of the criminal networks whose ecological exploitation they were working to expose.
As the world becomes more aware of the significance of the Amazon, home to nearly 400 billion trees, working in this vast region has become ever more dangerous for activists and journalists. Fires, land grabs, and the invasion of reserves have all spiked over recent decades, pushing the world’s biggest forest ever closer to a point of no return. The last few years have seen efforts to reduce deforestation, but the question remains; can we save this globally essential ecosystem before it is too late? Dom’s important and ultimately hopeful book argues the answer is yes.
A group of expert writers led by Jonathan Watts, a fellow journalist based in Brazil and the Guardian’s global environment editor, took up his partially completed manuscript, committed to his mission of uncovering the truth about deforestation and searching for solutions. These contributors include Jon Lee Anderson of The New Yorker and Beto Marubo, an indigenous campaigner from the Javari Valley.
Blending in-depth reporting and encounters with indigenous activists, ecologists, farmers, and political figures, How to Save The Amazon is a dazzling account of how we can fight ecological destruction and stand in solidarity with the Earth’s environmental defenders.
‘This book is the best possible tribute to a martyred colleague—these writers have helped finish the work he couldn’t, offering a picture of this crucial place and suggesting some of the ways we might still help it to survive.’ Bill McKibben
‘Bold, pacy, bursting with optimism and filled with vivid descriptions, this is the work of an indomitable soul’ Guy Shrubsole.
Lancaster Launch and Panel Discussion chaired by Jos Barlow, Distinguished Professor of Conservation Science at Lancaster University and cofounder of the Sustainable Amazon Network, with:
* Alessandra Sampaio, Dom’s widow and founder of the Dom Phillips Institute, founded to promote and share knowledge of the forest and its peoples
*Jonathon Watts, the Guardian’s global environment editor, and one of the writers who has led the project of completing Dom’s book
* Beto Marubo, indigenous leader of the Marubo ethnic group in the Javari Valley region of the Brazilian Amazon. He worked for 12 years alongside indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the protection of isolated peoples, and helped with the search effort for Dom and Bruno in June 2022
* Sian Phillips, Dom’s sister and local musician.
“How to Save the Amazon, a Journalist’s Deadly Quest for Answers” will be on sale and there’ll be a chance to see the updated exhibition ‘For Dom, Bruno and the Amazon’ in the Gregson bar.
Location
The Gregson Community and Arts Centre
33-35 Moorgate, Lancaster, Lancashire LA1 3PY
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