To those of us who have lived our lives driving everywhere we go in our home towns and flying in aircraft to travel long distances it may seem hard to believe that there are people who choose not to partake of the "benefits" of our globe-spanning 21st century super-civilization; However, it is all but impossible to believe that these people don't (or didn't) know that the outside world exists.
It seems far more probable that they have heard of our culture and seen some of its works and have decided that they would rather remain in the forest and live their own way...
Members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air near the Brazil-Peru border. The photos were taken during several flights over one of the remotest parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil’s Acre state.
‘We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,’ said uncontacted tribes expert José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Júnior. Meirelles works for FUNAI, the Brazilian government’s Indian affairs department. ‘This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.’
Meirelles says that the group’s numbers are increasing. But other uncontacted groups in the region, whose homes have been photographed from the air, are in severe danger from illegal logging in Peru. Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.
‘What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the ‘civilised’ ones, treat the world,’ said Meirelles.
There are more than one hundred uncontacted tribes worldwide, with more than half living in either Brazil or Peru. All are in grave danger of being forced off their land, killed and decimated by new diseases. Survival has launched an urgent campaign to get their land protected, and a unique film narrated by actress Julie Christie.
Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist. The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.’
From these peoples' stance vis-a-vis the aerial intruder
one might conclude that they have heard what lies in
store for them if they allow outsiders to come among
them...
To find out more about the photographs of uncontacted Indians in Brazil, see below. You can learn more about Survival's other news and campaigns on the main website
For further information please contact Miriam Ross on (+44) (0)20 7687 8700 or email mr@survival-international.org
To visit Survival International's report of this contact click: Here
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