The Amazon Rainforest Journalism Fund committee and the Pulitzer Center are pleased to announce the winning projects of the Dom Phillips Reporting Grant.
The grant funds ambitious, wide-reaching journalism projects that will investigate the future of the Amazon and how to prevent its collapse.
How to Save the Amazon was the title of the book that journalist Dom Phillips wanted to finish writing when he and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were assassinated on June 5, 2022, during a trip to the region. The grant will help journalists report as Phillips always wanted: on the ground, in conversation with the communities, seeking to show a wide audience possible ways to prevent the collapse of the crucial Amazon ecosystem and those who inhabit it.
The recipients of the Dom Phillips Reporting Grant:
Amanda Magnani and Eric Marky Terena will report in Brazil about hyperlocal solutions in the Serra da Lua Indigenous lands.
Felipe Milanez will report in Brazil on the Yawanawa people's struggle and interview the cacique and shaman Biraci Nixiwaka about his visions of collective futures, a job that Philips wanted, but was unable to do.
Gloria Pallares and Florence Goupil will report in Peru and Brazil about how to balance national interests with the survival of isolated tribes and forests in the Peru-Brazil border.
Laís Mota and Euclides Jose Conceição will report in Brazil and have an invitation from the Ashaninkas to enter the Kampa Indigenous territory in Acre, on the border with Peru. The report will tell the story of the struggle of the Ashaninkas, from the Incas, rubber in the 19th century, and logging today.
Misha Vallejo and Alarcón Peña will report in Ecuador about the Indigenous Achuar people who are building solar energy boats and creating the infrastructure to make a recharging station and a laboratory, and train technicians in their community.
Nádia Pontes and Bruno Kelly will report in Brazil about a group of 30 women from the Apinajé people who created the first female volunteer fire brigade in the Amazon. They received technical training and support from Ibama, an environmental organization in Brazil. The group is formed by young women from Indigenous villages and university teachers, who are ready to fight the fires that threaten their territory.
Paloma Dupont and Nicola Zolin will report in Brazil and will use technology to analyze the sounds that can protect the Amazon from environmental crimes. The proposal is based on "Listening," a key to the preservation of the ancestral memory of Indigenous peoples.
Pedro Samper Murillo, Manuela Saldarriaga, and Sergio Silva Numa will report in Colombia about Indigenous mental health and look for causes and solutions. The team will visit communities in Vaupés; La Pedrera, in the Amazon; and El Trapecio Amazónico, near Leticia.
Roberto Navia, Lisa Mirella Corti, Karina Segovia Cruz, Manuel Andrés Navia Segovia, Mariano Arrien-Gómez, and Richard Osinaga Muñoz will report in Bolivia on the Indigenous guardians of the Bolivian Amazon narrating the apocalypse that the world does not see and proposing solutions based on their ancestral wisdom.
Simeon Tegel and Florence Goupil will report in Peru about deforestation and cultural survival.
We are very excited to see the stories that will come out of these projects. We thank all of the journalists listed here for their commitment to elevating Phillips' mission of proposing solutions for the world’s largest rainforest.