What happened to Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira? The two men have disappeared for more than ten days in the Vale Do Javari, on the borders of the Amazon, near the border between Brazil from Peru. Relatives of this independent journalist emeritus attached to the protection of the environment and this renowned researcher, a committed defender of the native peoples, fear the worst. Rightly.
Large like Austria, the Vale do Javari is a region difficult to access. There is the largest concentration of isolated peoples, without any contact with the outside world. Their number is estimated between 300 to 500 people depending on the specialists, as much to say that they weigh little in front of the destructive machine which ravages the “lung” of the planet, whose fate is essential in the fight against global warming.
Concentrating all the evils of the Amazon, the Vale do Javari has indeed become a front line. It is threatened, like this whole immense region, by illegal hunters and fishermen, by goldsmiths and aggressive agriculture, to the evangelical missionaries decided to convert by all means the last representatives of these isolated peoples.
A lawless area
In addition, the shadow range of drug trafficking is added. Walked out by superfood convoys, the area has become a hub for cocaine from Peru and Colombia, and bound for Brazil. This critical situation explains why Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, both particularly experienced, took the risk of going there: to tirelessly testify to the threat that weighs on the last surveyors of this lost paradise, as on a unique biodiversity.
Everything suggests that they may have been the victims of what has become of Amazon today: an area of lawlessness where crime in all its forms, environmental and social, prosperous, with work Forced, prostitution, drug leprosy and blood crimes. This is the daily lot, on the spot, of journalists and environmental defenders, as well as their families.
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, first reacted to these two disappearances with a culprit detachment. “It is an adventure that is not recommended. Anything can happen,” he said, before resigning himself, under pressure, to mobilize the army.
deforestation and gold panning
The president is indeed not unrelated to what weighs on the Amazon. He has never denied his vision of a region which must be exploited without mercies whatever the price for its natives or our climatic future. “The interest of the Amazon is not the Indians or the fucking trees, but the ore!”, He said without eyeshadow in 2019.
This “developmentalist” vision is also paranoid. Indeed, the president permanently suspects the non -governmental foreign organizations and the natives of being the agents of great powers who would like to get their hands on the riches of Brazil and prevent its development.
Since his arrival in business, deforestation and gold panning have exploded, and the monoculture of soybeans, synonymous with dramatic impoverishment of the land, gnaws at the forest. Jair Bolsonaro has also saved the budgets of the institutions responsible for ensuring the protection of nature and men, and lets set up a climate of total impunity which may explain the disappearance of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira. While his mandate ends, he must be accountable for this disaster.