Dom Phillips was a journalist from the United Kingdom. At the age of 57, he passed away. Let’s see how did he die, what happened, and what was Dom Phillips Cause of Death.
Dom Phillips Cause of Death
Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were killed in an unofficial global battle on the environment and those who defend it. Their efforts were significant because our world, its perils, and the acts of those who endanger it are all important. This job must be carried forward.
The Earth’s surviving biodiverse zones — forests, wetlands, and oceans – are on the frontlines of this fight, and they are critical for the stability of our climate and planetary life-support system.
What happened to Dom Phillips?
Organized criminals and corrupt governments are attacking the integrity of these systems in order to exploit timber, water, and minerals for short-term, often unlawful profits. Indigenous people and other traditional forest dwellers, supported by civil society organizations, conservation groups, and academia, are the only thing standing in their way in many locations.
Dom, one of my friends, was well aware of the significance of this story. It’s why he took a year off to write How to Save the Amazon, and why he risked his life to travel to the Javari valley’s bandit zone with Bruno, one of Brazil’s most effective, courageous and threatened forest defenders.
How did Dom Phillips die?
It was supposed to be a book for everyone: approachable and useful, with a focus on both answers and issues. Dom’s journalism was always focused on making the world a fairer, more accountable, and enlightened place, and this was typical of him.
This, in my opinion, constituted him a twenty-first-century war correspondent as well as a witness to a crime that most likely contributed to his execution. Dom was not a political activist. He was a journalist’s journalist, eager to learn more about what was going on and share it with everybody who could be affected. All of us, in this scenario.
If there is any good to come out of the mind-numbingly horrific news, it should be for more journalists to cover this frontline, particularly in territories ruled by governments with criminal ties.
Is Dom have a thread?
Dom was well aware of the danger posed by Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has supported illegal logging and mining, disregarded Indigenous land rights, targeted conservation organizations, and cut the budgets and employees of forest and Indigenous protection agencies.
Dom expressed his concerns about the fate of the Amazon in a WhatsApp chat shortly after Bolsonaro won the first round of the 2018 Brazilian presidential election: He wrote to me, “This is a really dark and worrying phase, and it’s only going to get worse.” “I believe it will grow increasingly risky for journalists as well.”
His true concern was for defenders living on the outskirts of Amazonian areas where criminals were attempting to intrude on Indigenous lands and conservation zones. Dom was confident that a second-round victory would give the thugs permission to ramp up their assault. “What would it be like to live here if he wins?” He cautioned, “It’s like giving his mob carte blanche to attack everyone his mob disagrees with.” Following Bolsonaro’s election, Dom shifted his focus to the rainforest and its defenders.
Dom’s Early and Personal Life
It’s impossible to keep personal and work lives apart. Dom as a person was just as vital as Dom as a journalist. His loved ones, both family and friends, adored him.
I met him in 2012, shortly after arriving in Brazil, and we hit it off right away. He assisted me in acclimating to my new surroundings and instilled in me a love of Brazilian music, art, politics, and nature. Dom, who had been in the nation for five years, seemed to know everything there was to know. And he was intrigued about what he didn’t know. His curiosity about the world was like a mental searchlight that was always scanning the horizon. If he thought someone had something fascinating to say, whether, in a press conference or a bar, he would fix them with his piercing blue eyes and begin a polite but relentless interrogation.
We’d start the day early on weekday mornings by cycling up to the Corcovado, a lung-busting pastime that became known as “Christ on a bike.”
Despite his heavy workload, he made time for his buddies. Dom’s antidote to the blues was a Spotify playlist of Walker Brothers songs, a recipe for anchovy paste spaghetti, and a barrage of social invites from him and his wife, Alessandra, to entice me out of my funk. We also had some good times together.
His wedding party in Santa Teresa, where Dom and Alessandra radiated love and spurred joyful dancing, and my own wedding celebration in London last year, where every guest was invited to bring a message engraved on a stone instead of a present, were the most memorable of numerous get-togethers. Dom and Alessandra chose “Truth” as their present.
Dom’s Career
We shared a love of the outdoors and outdoor sports, as well as David Bowie and Björk. Many of the stories and photos Dom posted on WhatsApp are of magnificent views or wildlife he saw: rays, whales, turtles, and sharks spotted during standup paddle outings along the Copacabana beach; capucins, marmosets, and toucans observed on hillside walk around Rio de Janeiro.
We went on weekend excursions through the mountains between Teresópolis and Petropolis with a group of like-minded friends, ascended the Pedra da Gávea for a beautiful perspective of Rio, and walked up the slopes of Itatiaia for breathtaking views. Bike rides became more common.
That was his catchphrase. Dom was an accomplished journalist who thoroughly researched and fact-checked any topic thrown his way.
Is Dom a skilled Journalist?
He was a skilled journalist who covered topics ranging from economics to art, but it was his coverage of the Mariana environmental disaster that sparked his interest in environmental issues, particularly the destructive fires started by farmers and land-grabbers in the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
Dom increased his coverage of the environment and Indigenous rights, undeterred and increasingly horrified by what was happening to the rainforest and its defenders. Last year, he took a year off to write a book, demonstrating his commitment.
He left no stone unturned, as usual, which meant his Alicia Patterson Foundation funding was quickly depleted on reporting travels, forcing him to borrow money from his family in England to finish the project. One of the last reporting trips was to the Javari Valley. He had previously visited the distant reserve, which was the size of Austria, in 2018, where he had met Bruno.
What are frontline forest communities required?
Bruno persuaded Dom that the frontline forest communities required special attention. The hefty, bespectacled man said to Dom, “It’s not about us.” “The indigenous peoples are the unsung heroes.”
Earlier this month, the two guys reassembled for a fatal excursion to Javari. On their return, they appear to have been ambushed and slain, most likely by illegal fishing and contraband smuggling organizations that had previously threatened Bruno for assisting Indigenous people in exposing its crimes.
The Brazilian authorities were reluctant to act: when the two men went missing, the police declined to send in a helicopter, and the military declared it had the capacity to search but wasted more than a day waiting for orders.
What is the army’s response?
The army’s response demonstrates how weak and misdirected states have become. National defense is trapped in the past, with far too much emphasis on borders and insufficient attention paid to ecosystems.
Meanwhile, criminal gangs have complete impunity when it comes to invading Indigenous and ecological regions. The state’s reluctance to defend forest defenders while approving unlawful resource extraction implies that Brazil’s government has been taken over by criminal interests.
Everything in Brazil is political during an election year. “The signs are that something awful was done to them,” Bolsonaro stated, but he also accused Dom and Bruno of embarking on an “ill-advised expedition.” This is a frequent strategy in the battle for the environment.
Land defenders are frequently trivialized, denigrated, or criminalized by those pushing the extractive agenda. They try to portray protests and exposés as isolated and unreasonable rather than attempting to comprehend and confront global structural issues. When that fails, intimidation and violence are frequently used.
Environmental issue
The assassinations will undoubtedly frighten journalists and editors addressing environmental issues, but I hope they will inspire rather than deter. What happened to Dom and Bruno is not an isolated incident; it is part of a worldwide pattern. Thousands of environmental and land activists have been killed around the world in the last two decades. During that time, Brazil was the most murderous country on the planet.
Some deaths, such as those of Chico Mendes, Dorothy Stang, and recently Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, elicit global outrage, but the majority go unnoticed and uninvestigated. If there’s one thing the newest catastrophe can teach us, it’s that these aren’t isolated incidents. Allow journalists to investigate the patterns that link these murders, tell stories that are off the beaten path, and try to solve the world’s issues, as Dom did.
Tribute to Dom’s Death
Donna Bowater said,
News content writer.