Police are investigating possible human remains in their search for Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira. Photo / Getty Images
Authorities combing a remote corner of the Amazon for a missing British journalist and Brazilian indigenous expert are investigating possible human remains and a spot where something appears to have been buried, officials say.
Fears have been mounting over the fate of Dom Phillips, 57, and Bruno Pereira, 41, a respected specialist in indigenous peoples, since they disappeared on Sunday after receiving threats during a research trip to Brazil's Javari Valley, a far-flung jungle region that has seen a surge of illegal fishing, logging, mining and drug trafficking.
Authorities have arrested a 41-year-old suspect named as Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, nicknamed "Pelado," who witnesses say pursued the men upriver. A blood spot found on a tarp in his boat has been sent for analysis at the crime lab in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state.
Emergency official Geonivan Maciel said investigators now had a new lead in the case: a suspicious site with "overturned earth" in a community called Cachoeira, on a bank of the Itaquai river, where the men were last seen.
"It's as if someone had dug something at the site, buried something there," Maciel said.
"We're going to carry out a scan of the bottom to verify ... We can't say there's definite evidence, but we're going to see if there's something there that could identify something about the two missing men."
Federal police later said in a statement investigators had found "apparently human organic material" during their search.
It was unclear whether it came from the same site.
The Javari Valley, the vast, lawless, primeval Brazilian rainforest that is reputed to be home to more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else on earth — and a growing number of violent criminals coveting their natural resources — requires an expert guide.
Possibly none was more knowledgeable or experienced than Pereira, one of the two missing men who had allegedly being threatened by a local gangster.
A former head of the local branch of Funai, Brazil's national indigenous agency, Pereira, was also, by all accounts, determined, cool under pressure, and never travelled in the Amazon alone or without a firearm.
"He was always getting death threats," says Fiona Watson, of the indigenous rights campaign group Survival International, who has known Pereira for more than a decade and first visited the Javari herself in the 1990s. "A lot of indigenous leaders and their allies in Brazil do. It's the sad reality."
"You need to not get fazed easily. Many of the threats are intimidatory, just to prevent you doing your job. But some of them, of course, are all too real. Bruno and Dom would have thought things through carefully and were taking a calculated risk when they decided to go in."
In Pereira's case, that job was defending the human rights of the highly vulnerable tribespeople from the ruthless loggers, poachers, fishermen and drug traffickers ferrying cocaine from neighbouring Peru to markets from Rio de Janeiro to London.
Those criminals have increasingly encroached into the Javari, which is, in theory, an official reserve where outsiders are prohibited from even setting foot. In doing so, they have been risking the lives and cultures of an estimated 2,000 people from 14 different uncontacted tribes.
After heavy criticism for their initially slow reaction, police did arrest three men, and are continuing to hold one in custody, in what is effectively a murder inquiry.
Pelado, a prominent local fisherman with a reputation for violence and being linked to the drugs trade, was found with a shotgun as well as 7.62mm rifle cartridges and a small amount of what is thought to be cocaine.
Those cartridges are military issue only in Brazil, prompting suspicions that da Costa may have been involved with organised crime. Traces of blood were also found in his boat, although it is possible they have come from fish or animals. The traces have been sent to a laboratory.
Witnesses have claimed da Costa had previously shot at tribespeople and, separately, suggested he wanted to use Pereira for target practice. He was also allegedly seen, with a rifle, speeding after the pair on the river on the day of their disappearance.
Linguistically and culturally diverse, the peoples of the Javari include the Marubo, who believe that living humans have been pieced together from the remains of deceased ancestors, the Korubo, known for their war clubs, and Tsohom-dyapa or Toucan people.
They have no immunity to common Western diseases such as measles or flu, which have been known to wipe out entire tribes. Yet to develop metallurgy, these small, uncontacted groups also are no technological match for the guns used by those seeking to push them off their land.
Remote and accessible only by boat along its sediment-heavy rivers, the sweltering, densely-forested Javari, slightly larger than Scotland, is almost impossible to police. Corruption and impunity only compound the problem, with frequent accounts of violence emerging from the area. Even Funai workers are at risk, with one gunned down in front of his family in a nearby town in 2019.
Like most Amazonian countries, Brazil is formally committed to protecting its indigenous peoples. Where integration was once the vogue, with children sometimes taken from their parents, a guiding principle now is that only the tribes can initiate contact with outsiders.
Yet President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist dubbed the "Trump of the tropics", has, according to his critics, undermined those protections, both through his policies and racist rhetoric. He once even suggested tribespeople could only "become human beings" by adopting Western culture.
Bolsonaro's critics allege he has gutted Funai, including forcing Pereira out of his job there in 2019, while seeking to further open the Amazon, to mining, ranching and other economic activities. In doing so, he has driven up Brazil's carbon emissions from deforestation.
Bolsonaro has offered his sympathies to the families of Pereira and Phillips. Yet he also appeared to blame the two men for going on an "unrecommended adventure" in the jungle. That comment sparked anger, with critics pointing out that Pereira was defending human rights while Phillips was a journalist covering an issue of public interest.
"The situation is getting worse and worse. The very institutions that are supposed to be defending indigenous peoples are now fighting them," warns Rafael Nonato, a linguist who studies Amazonian languages at the Federal University of Pernambuco. "Bolsonaro has created this climate of impunity. People feel emboldened, that they will not be punished."
The result is that the Amazon's indigenous cultures are under more pressure than ever, with the clock ticking to the disappearance of most. That loss will be incalculable for all humankind.
Western scientists now recognise native knowledge of the rainforest and its biodiversity, including medicinal plants. Amazonian languages, so alien to most outsiders, could help resolve outstanding mysteries of neuroscience and evolution.
"What is a possible human culture or language? The only way to answer that fundamental question is by studying cultures and languages, especially those that are most different to our own," says Roberto Zariquiey, a Peruvian linguist working over the border from Brazil.
Watson adds: "We stand to lose all these different ways of looking at the world. Indigenous peoples have so much knowledge. They are scientists in their own right, botanists and zoologists, who have studied their environment over millennia."
It was a fascination with those cultures that led Pereira to the Javari, along with Phillips, a contributor to The Guardian, who was working on a book about the Amazon.
"Bruno was incredibly passionate about indigenous peoples, with a lot of stamina, which you need to have to travel there," says Watson. "He was also courageous and had a well-developed sense of humour. I fear the worst."
In a telling twist, it has emerged that da Costa de Oliveira's two lawyers were local prosecutors. They have now resigned from his defence. But with murky economic interests seeking to exploit the Javari and corrupt local authorities, international attention may prove key in achieving justice.
Meanwhile, the Javari's uncontacted peoples, already so exposed against unscrupulous outsiders, appear to have lost one of their most effective protectors.
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