MURDER INTHE AMAZON

• Published date: 12 June 2021
• Publication title: Northern Advocate, The (Whangarei, New Zealand)

Blake was gunned down after armed bandits boarded his exploration vessel, Seamaster, deep in the Amazon in December 2001. He was on a voyage looking into global warming and pollution, as well as trying to raise awareness about attacks on the environment along the Amazon.

Members of a group of pirates — known locally as “river rats” — were later caught, charged and convicted over his death. But questions remain whether the group was acting alone, or whether they had been hired by mafia figures trying to silence someone who might reveal illegal gold mining, forestry or drug-running in the area.

Sixteen years later Bethune was lucky to survive a knife attack on a street in Brazil while carrying out his own investigation into whether Blake’s murder was linked to figures involved in illegal gold mining.

The search for more information on both attacks — as well as highlighting the plight of the Amazon environment — are the subject of The Garden of Evil; a documentary written, produced and directed by veteran Kiwi journalist Larry Keating.

It features a trio of prominent investigative journalists — Donal MacIntyre, Sam Cowie and Caio Vilela — and took four years to produce, including months working on location in the Amazon.

“The film exposes the threats of ruthless protectionism, greed, unbridled street crime and river piracy, Keating said ahead of its world premiere at the Doc Edge Film Festival in Auckland tonight.

“Sir Peter Blake and Pete Bethune are examples of the thousands who have suffered at the hands of organised criminals in the Amazon in recent years. In fact, more than 200 guardians of the rainforest were murdered during the making of The Garden of Evil.”

Keating first thought about working on a documentary about Blake’s death after watching Death of a Hero; an episode in the BBC’s award-winning MacIntyre Investigates.

MacIntyre had been meant to be on board the Seamaster on the night of the attack to work on a pre-planned documentary on Blake’s life and conservation work, but he and his crew’s arrival had been delayed after they missed a flight to Brazil from Central America.

Death of a Hero follows MacIntyre as he belatedly journeyed up the Amazon.

“He had learnt, and I think the world knew, that most of the environmental activists who had been killed over the years ... and quite a few of them had been outsiders ... most of them had been killed by organised crime in a sense; be they farmers deforesting for land grabbing, or the mafia who were...