SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL - - Peru’s authorities have announced that they will work together with Brazil to stop loggers entering isolated Indians’ territory along the two countries’ joint border. The move is the first success of Survival’s campaign to protect the uncontacted Indians of the Peru-Brazil border.
Global coverage of newly-released photos and film footage has pushed the Peruvian government into action.
In a statement released February 2nd, Peru’s Foreign Ministry announced that they will ‘establish contact with Brazil’s FUNAI institute [Department of Indian Affairs]… to preserve these peoples and avoid the incursion of illegal loggers and the depredation of the Amazon.’
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said, ‘This is a really encouraging first step, let’s hope their declared intention turns into real action quickly.’
Movie star Gillian Anderson helped to launch Survival International’s new campaign to protect some of the world’s last uncontacted tribes by narrating the extraordinary new film, shot from the air by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The film shows uncontacted Indians on the Brazil-Peru border in never-seen-before detail. It is the first-ever aerial footage of an uncontacted community, shot with powerful zoom lenses.
Ms Anderson said, ‘What comes across very powerfully from this amazing footage is how healthy and confident these people appear. I hope they can be left alone – but that will only happen if the loggers are stopped.’
The footage was filmed by the BBC in collaboration with the Brazilian government, for the new BBC 1 ‘Human Planet’ series (broadcast 3 Feb). The Brazilian government has authorized Survival to use the footage as part of its campaign.
The Indians’ survival is in jeopardy as an influx of illegal loggers invades the Peru side of the border. Brazilian authorities believe the influx of loggers is pushing isolated Indians from Peru into Brazil, and the two groups are likely to come into conflict.
Stephen Corry said, ‘The very dangerous future for uncontacted tribal peoples should be of worldwide concern. Gillian Anderson’s help here will draw more attention to it – vital if the world is finally going to call a real halt to the centuries of destruction.’
Original posting: http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/brazilfootage
For more information and images, please contact Miriam Ross:
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Comments
The greenwashing of fools
"These people don't wear a crown, they are not first class citizens who can tell us, 400,000 natives to 28 million Peruvians, 'you don't have the right to come here at all'; this is a very grave error and anyone who thinks that wants to lead us into irrationality and a primitive retreat."
So if they had a crown, in the eyes of Alan Garcia they would have that right? Just like the king of Arabia? The agitated ruminations of the Peruvian President on the issue of indigenous nature reserves are quite revealing as to the role of aristocracy in resource conflicts. In this world of manmade deserts it's overwhelmingly monarchs, warlords and likewise more equal than the rest of us by proprietary birtright scum who are in charge of the access to common resources, and not tribes, leaderless hermit communities, and others that live off the land and with the land. If the very same fervor was directed against the thrones and robber barons of the so-called Old World it would be more than justified, but in the context of the conservation of human dignity and heritage it is just odd and deranged. There is a self-evident truth in the argument that planetary resources belong to all of us, but how can it be that tribes who waste nothing are being criticised more savagely than bluebloods which waste everything?