Eliane Brum, Beto Marubo, Alessandra Sampaio and Jonathan Watts talk to Jon Lee Anderson

Our well-being as humans is directly connected to nature on our planet, and the Amazon Rainforest is of vital importance globally. Yet the dangers posed to it are myriad. Our panellists, all with an intimate connection to the rainforest, talk to investigative reporter Jon Lee Anderson about attempts to save the Amazon from illegal loggers and how indigenous knowledge is key to protecting the area.

They also look at the work of late journalist Dom Phillips, killed in 2022 alongside Brazilian Bruno Pereira, an expert on indigenous peoples of Brazil, while researching a book on the Amazon. Phillips’ wife Alessandra Sampaio launched the Dom Phillips Institute in his memory. The organisation aims to promote and share knowledge of the forest and its peoples.

Eliane Brum and Jonathan Watts live in Altamira in the Amazon Rainforest. Brum is a writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker, whose latest book Banzeiro Òkòtó investigates the destruction of the Amazon by the construction of one of the largest dams in the world. Watts is global environment editor for the Guardian and founder of the Rainforest Journalism Fund. He is leading a team of writers to finish the book Phillips was working on when he was murdered.

Beto Marubo is an indigenous leader of the Marubo ethnic group in the Javari Valley region of the Brazilian Amazon. He worked for 12 years alongside indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the protection of 16 isolated peoples in that vast area, which sits close to the borders of Brazil, Peru and Colombia