Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips were killed in the Amazon: A year later their Indigenous allies risk death to carry on the work

Three assassins walked into a bar deep in the Brazilian Amazon one night last October. Beers flowed, tongues loosened and the men were overheard bragging about their latest job. “We’re looking for this Orlando bloke. We’ve come to kill him,” one of the inebriated hitmen is said to have declared, according to a tipoff conveyed to their target.

The Orlando in question was Orlando Possuelo, one of the Indigenous defenders who has been seeking to carry on the work of his colleague Bruno Pereira since Pereira was killed along with the British journalist Dom Phillips near the Javari valley Indigenous territory last June.

Orlando Possuelo, right, with members of the Indigenous patrol group that Bruno Pereira helped to create. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian