Books & Books is proud to present an afternoon with Alessandra Sampaio and Andrew Fishman discussing How to Save the Amazon: A journalist’s fatal quest for answers (Chelsea Green, $27.95). They will be in conversation with Vinod Sreeharsha. Journalist Dom Phillips traveled deep into the Amazon rainforest searching for solutions to the problem of deforestation, a threat to the local ecosystem, native tribes, and the global climate. When he was murdered in the Javari Valley by a group of environmental criminals, a cohort of journalists and activists took up his work to finish his book and share his important message.
***Please note: This event will take place at the Books & Books in Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Ave. Tickets are FREE and books will be available for purchase at the event. Want your copy early or can't make it in-person? Order your copy online here.
About the Book:
Journalist Dom Phillips traveled deep into the Amazon rainforest searching for solutions to the problem of deforestation, a threat to the local ecosystem, native tribes, and the global climate. When he was murdered in the Javari Valley by a group of environmental criminals, a cohort of journalists and activists took up his work to finish his book and share his important message.
During the dark days of the Bolsonaro administration, British journalist Dom Phillips set out to accomplish an ambitious goal: through research, interviews, and site visits deep in the rainforest, he would emerge with a book answering the question—how can we save the Amazon? Traveling with his companion Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, Dom’s adventure includes trekking through Amazonia to see where ranching, fires, illegal fishing, mining, the drug trade, and urbanization have deforested and degraded millions of acres of important forest, degraded ecosystems, and created dangerous conditions for the Indigenous tribes who have called the Amazon home for thousands of years.
Jair Bolsonaro came into power on a platform of anti-environmental exploitation and deregulation. During his term, deforestation in the Amazon, the “lungs of Planet Earth,” increased exponentially as environmental criminals took advantage of lax rules, advantageous land use policy, and the difficulty of enforcing laws in a remote area of immense size. Lawlessness reigned and environmental activists found themselves in danger. With the intention of discovering strategies to protect both the land and the people who inhabit it, Dom connected with politicians, farmers, and Indigenous activists to study the benefits and pitfalls of solutions like agroforestry, tourism, and the bioeconomy. While traveling by boat in the Javari Valley, Dom and Bruno were brutally murdered. Unwilling to see her late husband’s work be for naught, Dom’s widow, Ale, and his literary agent assembled a team of expert writers, journalists, and activists to complete his work, with each tackling one unfinished chapter and grappling with the challenge of interpreting his field notes and discovering his conclusions. How to Save the Amazon, therefore, is a book both by and about Dom Phillips, his quest for answers, and his search for hope.
About the Contributors:
Alessandra Sampaio: Alessandra is Dom Phillips’ widow and founder of the Dom Phillips Institute, founded to promote and share knowledge of the Amazon and its peoples
Andrew Fishman: Andrew is a contributor to How to Save the Amazon, a friend of Dom Phillips, and the president and co-founder of The Intercept Brasil
About the Moderator:
Vinod Sreeharsha worked for nearly two decades in South America as a freelance foreign correspondent, writing for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and LatinFinance. He first met Dom in 2010 when both lived in São Paulo and were trying to get by. They later worked together for the oil and gas newswire Platts, trying to create a makeshift news bureau - Dom’s brilliant idea and located in his living room - to compete against staff reporters at the big media companies. Sreeharsha, a California native, has lived in Miami since December 2022 and is currently the Miami Herald’s business tourism reporter.
