Bonnier Books UK hopes for safe return of author Dom Phillips missing in the Amazon

Bonnier Books UK says it is hoping for the safe return of Dom Phillips, a journalist who was in the process of writing a book entitled How to Save the Amazon with its Manilla Press imprint and who went missing on a reporting trip to the Amazon. It was scheduled for publication in April 2023.

Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira went missing while on a boat for a reporting trip in the rainforest on 5th June. 

According to reports, Pereira recently received threats over his work against illegal fishing. Both men have previously written about threats to the Amazon for outlets including the Guardian and Washington Post. 

This week, the British journalist’s sister Sian Phillips, called on UK authorities to put more pressure on the Brazilian government to find the two men. 

She said: "We want to carry on with the search. We want to find out what is happening to them and we want anyone responsible for any criminal act to be brought to justice. We want a persistent, deep and open investigation." 

Phillips moved to Brazil in 2007 and since then has written extensively for British and American newspapers. He is one of nine journalists awarded fellowships for 2021 for the Alicia Patterson Foundation - the US’s oldest journalism fellowship - for the How to Save the Amazon project and was also made the 2021 Cissy Patterson Environmental Fellow.

Margaret Stead, publisher at Manilla Press, said: “Dom was so passionate about writing How to Save the Amazon. When we met, he brought the subject to life for the team at Manilla Press, with his stories of the riches of the Amazon, and the peoples and places he has visited. He is brilliant, kind, funny; and while the book has a very serious message about the Amazon region, it is also stubbornly optimistic about the future. We all hope that he will be found safe, and that his work on this wonderful project can continue.”

In the book, the publisher said, Phillips journeys deep into the Amazon to show readers the Earth’s most wondrous place in all its vibrant, fragile, messy glory, and meets the vivid personalities among its millions of people fighting to sustain and protect it, as well as those who are destroying it. 

Rebecca Carter, Phillips’ literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit, said: “Watching the care and passion with which Dom crafted his book proposal and then set about researching the book that he was calling How to Save the Amazon. has been one of the most inspiring experiences of my publishing life. His work is always first and foremost about the change that individuals can make when working in harmony with nature and with those around them. He is an extraordinary person, committed to building positive relationships and making that change himself, and I pray that he can come home safely and finish this book.”