Book Talk: How to Save the Amazon by Dom Phillips

Join Americas Society and Young Professionals of the Americas for an event on the new book, How to Save the Amazon, by the late journalist Dom Phillips. The event will feature Phillips' widow Alessandra Sampaio and book contributor Andrew Fishman. The event will be introduced by Carin Zissis, editor-in-chief of AS/COA Online and interim director of AS/COA’s Washington Office. 

The discussion will be followed by a reception with wine and snacks.

• Register for the program.
• Contact dcprograms@as-coa.org with questions.
• Americas Society members get priority seating, as well as enjoy exclusive access to our concerts, art gallery, current affairs events, Americas Quarterly magazine, and more. Join today!

About the book:

During the Bolsonaro administration, journalist Dom Phillips set out to accomplish an ambitious goal: through research, interviews, and site visits deep into the rainforest, he would emerge with a book answering the question, “How can we save the Amazon?” Dom’s investigation led him through Amazonia, where the drug trade, ranching, fires, illegal fishing, and mining have degraded millions of acres of important forest ecosystems, creating dangerous conditions for the Indigenous communities who have called the Amazon home for thousands of years. Searching for strategies to protect both the land and the people who inhabit it, Dom connected with politicians, farmers, and Indigenous activists. But in June of 2022, while traveling by boat to the Javari Valley with Brazilian expert on Indigenous affairs Bruno Pereira, Dom and Bruno were brutally murdered.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, a group of expert writers, journalists, activists, and colleagues took up Dom’s partially completed manuscript in a mission to uncover the answers he sought. Blending in-depth reporting with a relentless pursuit of the truth, the result—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.

Pre-order the book through Bookshop.org. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.

Panelists

Alessandra Sampaio 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 is a contributor to How to Save the Amazon, a friend of Dom Phillips, and the president and co-founder of The Intercept Brasil.