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TechnoratiSighting of Amazon Group Bolsters Environmentalist Case
· Hunter-gatherers seen in area sought by loggers· Uncontacted people not 'absurd' after all
At first they are just a blur, tiny figures by a river in Peru's Amazon jungle. Then the plane descends, the camera focuses, and you see them: 21 people outside palm huts, the apparent remnants of an uncontacted tribe. They gaze up at the intruder, itself a blur of noise and metal, and a woman carrying arrows gestures aggressively. When the plane makes a second pass the people melt into the jungle.
The encounter took place last month by the banks of the Las Piedras river in the Alto Purús national park near Peru's frontier with Brazil. Scientists believe the grainy figures were members of the Mascho Piro tribe, hunter-gatherers who have shunned the outside world.The contact was fleeting but the repercussions could be profound because this swath of Amazon, 550 miles east of Lima, is at the centre of a battle pitting indigenous rights groups and environmentalists against the Peruvian state, loggers and oil companies.
Those who want to develop the rainforest have played down the impact on its human inhabitants. Some even questioned their existence. Daniel Saba, president of Perupetro, the state oil company, said the notion of uncontacted tribes was "absurd" since no one has seen them. A company spokesman compared the rumours to the Loch Ness monster.
The film, taken by ecologists from the national institute of natural resources, is a powerful riposte.
They were looking for evidence of illegal logging and spotted the group by chance, said Ricardo Hon, a forest scientist who was in the small plane. "There were three huts and about 21 Indians - children, women and young people," he said.
Similar types of huts were spotted in the region in the 1980s, prompting speculation that this was the Mascho Piro, a tribe which erects temporary dwellings near riverbanks during the dry season when it is easier to fish, then move back into the forest during the wet season.
"This is the most recent recorded sighting of them," said Peru's national Indian organisation, Aidesep. "The uncontacted tribes exist. If we don't act now, tomorrow could be too late."
Contact with outsiders has proved fatal to people who have not developed resistance to the common cold and other illnesses. More than half of the Murunahua tribe who came into contact with loggers in the mid 1990s are said to have died. Some members of the Mascho Piro, estimated to number about 600, are believed to have had dealings with more settled groups but most have avoided the outside world>
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© 2007 The Guardian
15 Comments so far
Show AllIf Mr. Bush's wish comes "true" and he gets to bomb Iran and kick off the so-called end-times, we'll all be living in huts, gathering leaves and twigs and burning old truck tires to stay warm.
jdpsd44--that gives me hope
Kelmer---Forced "relocation" didn't work out so well for native peoples on our own continent, did it?? "Genocide" is right1
Old Goat,
Thanks for the lesson. I wish our leaders knew what you know. I'm not hopeful that non-contacted(unspoiled?) people can survive much longer in face of the fact of accelerated consumption. I agree with that fellow who asserts that actual wealth is proportional to the resources remaining and not to the rate of consumption. The MSM is always going on and on about the strength of retail sales.
Are they insane or am I the lunatic?
ezeflyer, you said it there. Leave those tribe people alone, nice to know that somewhere people can still survive living totally natural.
We don't treat threatened "wild" tribes in their habitat with the same care and respect we treat threatened wildlife in theirs.
You can be in the middle of flippin' nowhere in Amazonia and the tribes people will tell you that they need stuff like axes for canoe making and spare parts for outboard motors. There are small airstrips all over the place. You can see Chicago Bulls t-shirts where they wear achiote and make palm fibre hammocks.
A note here from John Perkins would be helpful in understanding how American Enterprize has destroyed villages, complete communities, infected whole tribes with diseases. John???
Kelmer you said
"I doubt very much a lost tribe will be enough to change the way the amazon is being destroyed. They can always be relocated–other species just face extinction."
I don't think you have given this much thought. I think you have to ask yourself, Why is it that this Mascho Piro tribe has been able to live in the "Amazon" rainforest, for who knows how long, and haven't destroyed it. While, "we" have no choice, but to destroy it.
Then you go on and say that they can always be relocated. I very much doubt that because this is the environment in which they have evolved and they are still evolving. You are committing a form of prolonged genocide to this people if you were to do that.
One last point, the phrase "other species just face extinction", so you are telling me, that this isn't going to affect you?
old goat,
you lost me at taxonomial...
well, I see FOUR huts, so this is obviously another scam perpetrated by the liberal media...
being sarcastic of course.
Why is it that the "civilized" world sees no value in life other than theirs... including plants, animals and other humans?
rhetorical question I guess, but it's so sad.
Do you think they would adopt my family?
Maybe we can relocation assistance.
jdpst44, you are spot on.
Those are the people that will survive the coming apocolypse.
Say hello to the founding members of the new human race.
I doubt very much a lost tribe will be enough to change the way the amazon is being destroyed. They can always be relocated--other species just face extinction.
Even selifsh arguments like saying that there are rare plants that can be used for medicine doesnt work. If the amazon isnt valued and respected as it is--then humans are doomed as the stupidest, most pathetic species to ever exist.
The myth of "vigin forest" is just that - a false myth. The forests have been stewarded for thousands of years by cultures that employ taxonomial structures far exceeding western science. The forest is home, library, laboratory, mother and social equal. The last point is what western hubris prevents.
The Guarani were referred to by the father of western taxonomy, Linnaeus as "primus verus systematicus" according to Brazilian anthropologists who in 2000 verified that the culture remains both cognitively and symbolically intact. Yet the UN has verified that they are struggling against institutionalized genocide.
Over 10,000 words in Brazilian Portuguese are are of Tupi-Guarani origin. Medical dictionaries still reference Guarani etymology.
Northern Indian Country is never covered in the media.
No, we need to study war because history needs to be denied and peoples and resources used. Its the USA corporate way.