When Brazilian journalist Adecio Piran saw a WhatsApp message that British journalist Dom Phillips was missing in the Amazon, a shiver ran down his spine.
Phillips was known for his coverage of environmental issues like illegal logging and poaching, writing for , and others.
Now he and Bruno Pereira, an Indigenous expert traveling with him in the remote Javari region, had vanished.
Piran, who works in Brazil’s northern state of Para, recalled thinking, "That could have happened to me."
"I felt like I was in their place. I was shocked. A movie goes through your head," he told VOA.
The search for Phillips and Pereira culminated Wednesday when authorities announced that a suspect had confessed to being involved in their killing and directed police to where they could recover the bodies.
A forensic .
The apparent killing of a high-profile journalist has renewed focus on the risks for those investigating environmental issues.
"All these drivers make up this scorched earth scenario that we live in the Amazon," said Danicley de Aguiar, from Greenpeace Brazil.
"Environmental crime has become organized. And every time a journalist dares to speak about the silencing process of social leaderships, they become a target alongside the leadership."
Piran knows what that feels like.
In August 2019, he broke a story about coordinated efforts by ranchers, farmers and others to burn newly deforested land in what became known as the “Day of Fire.”
They wanted to send a message to Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, that they agreed with his vision to develop the Amazon and were ready to work, burning forests to clear land for grazing.
The story – covered by other journalists, including Phillips – and a backlash from the “Day of Fire” perpetrators.
“It turned into a mess, like a Western movie, like I was wanted,” Piran recalled. Leaflets bearing his photo were distributed, and and other social media.
"I couldn’t walk on the streets," he said. "It was horrible; I don’t even want to remember that."
The journalist had to leave his home until tensions eased.
Bolsonaro in 2018 made clear his intent to open the Amazon for development.
Since then, commercial pressure on the Amazon – a vast area seen as vital for its ecological diversity and as a buffer against global warming – increased.
Deforestation hit record highs year after year, and a 2021 report from the international environmental organization Global Witness ranked Brazil as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmentalists, .
Killings on Indigenous lands also increased, with 182 cases recorded in 2020, up from 113 in 2019, according to a report by the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI).
“Conflicts relating to territorial rights” more than doubled, .
Activists, environmentalists, journalists and Indigenous people are on the front lines.
"The people at the forefront of this fight to protect our lands, like me, like Indigenous leaders, have a target on our back. We put our lives at risk," said Natim Guajajara, who is part of the Guardians of the Forest group.
The Guardians, with more than 100 Guajajaras, one of the country’s largest Indigenous groups from the eastern part of the Amazon, was formed in 2013 to fight illegal logging gangs.
One of their members, Paulo Paulino Guajajara, was killed in 2019, and a Guajajara leader and supporter of the Guardians named Zezico Rodrigues Guajajara was killed the following year.
No one has been brought to justice.
The risks ripple through the region, with threats coming from a range of interests.
"There is a history of this predatory occupation in the Amazon. There are politicians involved, wildcat miners involved, and illegal loggers involved. These are different groups with the same interest that have gotten together to destroy the Amazon," said Arison Jardim of the Apiwtxa Association, which protects the interests of the Ashaninka people of Acre state.
Jardim is a journalist and communications adviser for the association.
Phillips, who was working on a book about conservation efforts in the Amazon, visited Acre state and the Ashaninka people before joining Pereira in Vale do Javari.
Bordering Peru and Colombia, Vale do Javari has the second-largest Indigenous territory in Brazil, and the biggest concentration of isolated and newly contacted indigenous people.