Exhibition opens at Halton Mill in memory of men killed in Amazon rainforest

The exhibition, in memory of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, precedes an international conference


An exhibition at Halton Mill, co-organised with Lancaster University Environment Centre and Lancaster City Council, opens on Sunday 30th October, in memory of Guardian journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira.

The two men were killed in the Amazon in Brazil in June 2022. They were in the region to research Phillips’ book, How to Save the Amazon.

The exhibition, which will be opened by Phillips’ sister and Lancaster musician Sian Phillips, is ahead of an international conference on saving the Amazon rainforest, due to be held next month.

The conference will be held in Lancaster on 19th and 20th November, as well as online. It will bring together campaigners, organisations, activists, and journalists with the intention of highlighting Phillips’ message that there is a way to prevent the collapse of the Amazon’s ecosystem, provided that we act urgently.

There will be a month of activities in and around Lancaster commemorating Phillips and Pereira in a partnership between Lancaster University Environment Centre, Lancaster City council, and Halton Mill, a low-carbon co-working and event space.

The majority of the events are free, and any donations will go to a fund that has been set up by the families of Phillips and Pereira. It will support the Indigenous Defenders of the Rainforest in the Javari Valley, which is where the men were killed.

Alongside a roundtable with journalists working in the Amazon, speakers at the conference include Dr Nelly Marubo, who worked with Bruno Pereira in Funai; the Brazilian agency for Indigenous people; and Dr James Fraser, a researcher into biodiversity conservation, social justice, and sustainable farming. Campaigning organisations such as Survival International and Cool Earth will also be present to talk about their work in the Amazon.

Co-organiser of the event, Fiona Frank, who spent time in Peruvian Amazonia, told the Guardian: “I’ve played music with Sian in Lancaster for 15 years and she’s my choir leader. I was devastated when the news about her brother emerged. I was inspired to turn my emotion to action by a tweet from a Brazilian journalist, Chico Pinheiro, who wrote in June: ‘You can’t kill an idea! They buried Dom and Bruno: buried, the seeds sprout, become leafy trees and the forests appear’.”

Related articles recommended by this writer: