Greed puts isolated tribes in danger

ONE of the world’s last uncontacted tribes has been spotted from the air in a remote part of the Amazon near the Brazil-Peru border.

They are one of around 100 tribes worldwide who have never been in touch with anyone from the outside world and already they are under immense threat from oil mining and logging companies.

Aid groups say the isolated indian tribes are in grave danger of being forced off their land or attacked by diseases new to them.

A French company is in a legal battle with Amazon indian lobby groups over plans to drill for oil in parts of the jungle inhabited by some of the world’s last uncontacted tribes.

The company, Perenco, is working in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon where at least two uncontacted tribes live. It is believed to be the biggest oil find in Peru in 30 years and the Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, has expressed hopes it will transform the country’s economy.

The case has been filed by Peru’s Amazon Indian organisation, AIDESEP. It urges the judge to prohibit Perenco and other companies from working in the region and making contact with the tribes.

Perenco acquired the rights to work in Peru after taking over a US company, Barrett Resources, earlier this year. Barrett had already attracted fierce criticism from Peruvian Indians after revealing plans to “communicate” with the tribes using megaphones if its oil crews were attacked by them.

Any form of contact with the tribes could be catastrophic because of their vulnerability to outsiders’ diseases. After first contact, it is common for more than 50% of a tribe to die. Despite this, and despite an international law that recognises the tribes as the rightful owners of their land, Perenco continues to work there.

Meanwhile, loggers operating illegally in the Alto Purús National Park in Peru are causing large numbers of uncontacted Indians to flee from their land. The nomadic Piro Indians have been forced across the border into Brazil, bringing them into conflict with other isolated Indians whose territory they occupy.

Officials from FUNAI, Brazil’s department of Indian affairs, report signs of large-scale logging operations such as sawn planks of wood marked by Peruvian companies and oil drums, floating in the Envira River.

They are now extremely concerned that the Piro may contract diseases to which they have no resistance due to their isolation, and that they are likely to invade the lands of tribes in Brazil, which could lead to serious conflict as the groups compete for resources.

During the last four years, officials from FUNAI have noted increasing signs of the presence of uncontacted Piro Indians in Acre state on the border with Peru. The Piro clearly wish to be left alone — one fired an arrow at José Carlos Meirelles, head of FUNAI’s post on the Upper Envira River, several years ago.

A number of areas in south-eastern Peru, though designated as national parks or territorial reserves for isolated Indians living there, are being continually invaded by logging companies operating illegally.

Mr Meirelles, acting head of FUNAI’s uncontacted Indians’ unit, warns logging operations in Peru are not small scale and fears conflict will soon erupt. “As soon as the Piro begin to move into the lands of indigenous peoples in Brazil, there will be a territorial dispute, and there will be war.”

The three uncontacted Indian groups on the Brazilian side of the border are not nomadic. Three areas have been recognised as belonging to them. They too have suffered from periodic invasion of their land by settlers, who in June 2000 shot at a group of uncontacted Indians in the Alto Tarauaca river, killing one of them.