Uncontacted Amazonian Tribe Photographed

[City2TheMax 3]

Thank you Bumdark.

[Micah 16]

For all we know, these could be post-modern people living in "The Village."

[mightygoose 92]

Originally posted by: mightygoose xmike well im guessing more arrows....

the clearest possible way forward is to set up some UN sanctions on the interaction with technologically unaware unmodernised societies, so that there are clear guidelines on the sanctions available necessary to preserve the isolation and culture of the unmodernised society while also recognising and catering for the economic needs of the modernised society that the unmodernised society resides within.

quote>

the focus group idea probably would facilitate the above, anyway having a dig around there is a national geopgraphic article that outlines the groups and what they have now called for....

Photos Spur Debate on Protecting "Uncontacted" Tribes

Kelly Hearn for National Geographic News

June 3, 2008

New photos of an "uncontacted" Amazonian tribe and aerial video of their camp (watch below) have intensified the longstanding debate over how such tribes are labeled and what strategies to employ to protect them from developers. Among the key questions: Should these people be contacted? And are they truly uncontacted in the first place? The photos, released last week by the Indian affairs agency of the Brazilian government, or FUNAI, show several Amazon natives in loincloths firing arrows at a passing aircraft from near palm huts. (See the new photos.) A statement by Survival International, a tribal rights group, quoted Jos Carlos dos Reis Meirelles of FUNAI as saying the photo was taken to "show they are there, to show they exist." The group's statement referred to comments made last year by Peruvian President Alan Garcia, as well as top officials at the country's oil agency, PeruPetro, casting doubts on the existence of the uncontacted native groups. (PeruPetro did not respond to interview requests for this story.) (Related: "Oil Exploration in Amazon Threatens 'Unseen' Tribes" In response to the photos, an umbrella group of native rights organizations in South America called CIPIACI on May 30 asked Peruvian authorities to stop native displacement, which it said is caused largely by illegal logging and evangelists. Ronald Ibarra Gonzales, an official with Peru's agency for indigenous peoples, DGPOA, told the newspaper El Comercio "A professional team will go to the place to gather information and determine if illegal logging has displaced this community," Ibarra said. [March 21, 2008].) the same day that officials are mobilizing to investigate the matter.

Really Uncontacted? The FUNAI photos, as well as others taken in Peru this year, are prompting many to ask what the term "uncontacted" actually means. It's unlikely, for example, that these tribes have avoided any contact with developed societies, said Alexandra Aikhenvald, a linguistics professor at Australia's La Trobe University who has done extensive work in the Amazon. "It is more a media newsmongering catchall word than any sort of scientific term," she said. At least some contact probably occurred during the Amazonian rubber boom that lasted from about 1870 to the start of the First World War, a period marked by enslavements and massacres of natives. Padre Ricardo lvarez Lobo, a Dominican priest who has worked with natives, said in an earlier interview with National Geographic News that those 19th- and 20th-century encounters probably created social taboos that send today's tribes fleeing from outsiders. Survival International's David Hill said: "They're an uncontacted tribe in the sense that they live without contact with Brazilian national society or contacted tribes. "We're not saying they've never had contact, just that those alive today live without it." But John Hemming, a well-known author and expert on indigenous peoples, said he has no problem with the term "uncontacted." "When a tribe gets to around a thousand people, it exhausts its resources in surrounding rivers and forests, causing it to split," he said, adding that a young chief will take three or four families to create a new village. "Within a generation or two that group might have memories of outside contact, but no direct contact," he said. Keeping Hands Off As for what to do to best ensure the safety of such tribes, experts are similarly divided, said Nicole Bourque, a Glasgow University anthropologist. "Some will say leave them untouched," she told the Scotsman "Others, probably the majority, will say more contact is inevitable. So the best thing you can hope for is managed contact, where you send an appropriate person in to prepare them for what might happen." Hemming, however, told National Geographic News that strategies should be determined on a case-by-case basis. "The big distinction is whether you are referring to people within an already protected area," he said. Brazil and Peru are the countries with the greatest number of isolated peoples, perhaps 34 and 20 respectively, he said. Most of these groups are thought to be in forests that already hold protected status as indigenous parks or territories. All countries that contain parts of the Amazon region—Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil—have publicly announced policies of leaving uncontacted indigenous groups alone as long as possible. Such plans are made easier if the groups already live in protected territory. But critics such the Lima-based rights groups AIDESEP and Racimos de Ungurahui say that developers routinely encroach on protected areas, especially in Peru. "Theoretically, the only reasons they would make contact is if the Indians were facing a physical threat such as loggers, rumors of gold or diamonds, disease from adjacent tribes or, worst of all, a planned road near their territory," Hemming said. Robert L. Carneiro, an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, supports a hands-off approach. He advocated a policy of creating maps of isolated communities' territory by consulting with neighboring tribes—and then making no efforts at contact to help preserve the pristine groups. "In some way or another, it's inevitable that they will be contacted," said Carneiro, adding that he thinks the people in the FUNAI photos are related to the Aruak tribe, which he studied in 1960 and 1961. "That's when anthropologists and medical services should come in to ensure their physical survival," he said. Wade Davis is a noted author and a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.) "There is no need to establish contact a priori just because of scientific curiosity," he said. "It doesn't give us a right to impose ourselves on these societies. "If there are forces beyond our control, such as the will of nation states to penetrate rain forests with a pipeline, it does behoove us to make sure contact is as benign as possible," he added. "That means, for example, using vaccination to ensure that pestilential diseases don't sweep through communities before benign contact is made." Others say contact isn't a foregone conclusion. "Calling something inevitable sounds to me like an excuse for not doing your best to do the right thing and stop it," said Hill, of Survival International. The group takes the position that uncontacted tribes should be allowed to live in their own way on their own land, as recognized by international law. newspaper.

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© 1996-2008 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.

[venator76 0]

Hello, that's my first post, I'm a lurker, but as this post discussed something happening ni the country I live in, I decided to participate.

I personally think that those pictures are staged.

It was taken in a state named Acre, in the border with Peru. It's IMPOSSIBLE to have an untouched tribe there, that have never had any contact with civilization or with other tribes who already contacted us. The state is relatively small to Brazilian proportions and have at least one big city, named Rio Branco, plus a population of almost 1 million people living in that state. There are also army bases, wood and rubber exctrat manufactures working deep in the jungle, etc...

A lot of Brazilian "indians" have cell phone, satellite tv and some of them even have small airplanes and trucks. They earn rivers of money in contraband of wood, illegally extracted from their reserves.

The most important thing is: those pictures came out exactly at the same time as a proposition from the federal government to give, to a tribe of only 12,000 indians, a huuuuuuge part of the Brazilian territory in the state of Roraima (bigger than most European countries) full of gold, silver and other valuable natural resources.

Roraima bords Venezuela, which raised controversies about a possible lost of national territory, in the future, to foreign governments. The indians are supported by foreign NGO's and by the UN. Already 13% of the Brazilian territory (110 million hectares) was given to less than 500,000 indians. Non-indians are being removed by force from those territories, even people that claim to have property of the lands, from generation to generation, for more than 150 years.

Sometimes, things are just not what they seem.

[jugioh1012 2]

Wow!Thanks for sharing that venator76. I guess so that things aren't always as they seem...

[mightygoose 92]

Originally posted by: venator76 Hello, that's my first post, I'm a lurker, but as this post discussed something happening ni the country I live in, I decided to participate.

I personally think that those pictures are staged.

It was taken in a state named Acre, in the border with Peru. It's IMPOSSIBLE to have an untouched tribe there, that have never had any contact with civilization or with other tribes who already contacted us. The state is relatively small to Brazilian proportions and have at least one big city, named Rio Branco, plus a population of almost 1 million people living in that state. There are also army bases, wood and rubber exctrat manufactures working deep in the jungle, etc...

A lot of Brazilian "indians" have cell phone, satellite tv and some of them even have small airplanes and trucks. They earn rivers of money in contraband of wood, illegally extracted from their reserves.

The most important thing is: those pictures came out exactly at the same time as a proposition from the federal government to give, to a tribe of only 12,000 indians, a huuuuuuge part of the Brazilian territory in the state of Roraima (bigger than most European countries) full of gold, silver and other valuable natural resources.

Roraima bords Venezuela, which raised controversies about a possible lost of national territory, in the future, to foreign governments. The indians are supported by foreign NGO's and by the UN. Already 13% of the Brazilian territory (110 million hectares) was given to less than 500,000 indians. Non-indians are being removed by force from those territories, even people that claim to have property of the lands, from generation to generation, for more than 150 years.

Sometimes, things are just not what they seem.quote>

can we see some linked sources for that information please....

[CltcDrgn 0]

Hmm, this thread is really becoming quite something. Let's see...let nature take it's course, if they die, they die...what a concept. I guess that means City2TheMax NEVER goes to the doctor when sick, NEVER takes OTC medications for any kind of pain, or health issue. I mean if one went to the doctor, then one is interfering with nature taking it's course. As far as why we HAVE to protect these people, well that is a good question? Why should we have to help people in Africa that are starving, or are the victims of genocide? If we are sending all that aid there, and very little actually gets through to those who need it, why bother? Why don't we just close up all the nations' borders, suspend trade and commerce between nations, and get down to settling our own affairs? The Brits go off and do what they do, the Chinese can go off and do whatever they do, so on and so forth. You know, I am really sick and tired of people playing all these games of "who can we blame for the world's problems?", maybe we should all wake the F@#% UP and realize we live on the same planet. Do I like the fact of how the world is today? NO! Do I think more can be done, and in better ways, to help others? YES! But to sit back and say things like: "Let nature take it's course" or "Blame the USA, because they can't leave well enough alone!" is idiotic and childish! I guess the worlds' collective memory doesn't go back 50 to 60 years ago, when a a group of nations banded together to stop the Nazis and their allies from take over the world. I guess that the worlds' collective memory also doesn't remember the fact the greatest of those nations helped to rebuild a war torn world! I guess the worlds' collective memory also can't remember that the one nation everyone loves to bash and place blame on, is also the first to offer a helping hand in a time of disaster. That one nation is not perfect, but I call that nation my home, and one I proudly served by becoming a Marine!

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: CltcDrgn [stuff]

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Yeah, why don't you close the borders and see how much fun that is?

[Nerd_Guy 4]

CltcDrgn:  I understand where you're coming from, but there may be more effective ways of wording it that won't bring angry comments upon yourself.  

Personally, I think that this is a very interesting experience to find this tribe of people.  It is somewhat inspirational, that these people can survive for so long without outside intervention or without being involved in the crap going on in the world today.  I mean, just look at the arguments between the people in this thread already.  Do we really want them to know a society like this?  I say no.  We should just leave them a large exclusion zone and let them do what they want.  They are obviously doing fine without medical attention so far as they have lasted so long.  An exclusion zone can be enforced by local authorities and patrolled by drones, as previously mentioned.  We don't have to spend tons of resources, we just have to leave them alone and make sure everyone else gets the message.

[CltcDrgn 0]

You do know I was being really sarcastic when referring to closing the borders? I know perfectly well that is highly unrealistic, I was trying to make the point that we are all living on the same planet, and we need to find better ways of doing things. I guess I also get really agitated when some people love to start playing the blame game, or show a complete lack of a reference point to world history. Every nation on this planet, and throughout history has things to be ashamed of. I guess it comes down to being passionate about what you believe, and then standing up for those beliefs. I myself am an immigrant to the U.S.. I am also very passionate about the belief that nations with great power, also have a greater responsibility. It is up to nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia and so on, to do the best they can in promoting a better world, and in helping small countries. They have a great responsibility to ensure that those that need help and protection get that help and protection. I then get greatly agitated when I see those nations fail to uphold their responsibilities. I definitely think more can be done to stop what is happening in Darfur, to ensuring that aid gets to those who need it, and not fall into the hands of warlords and dictators. I guess I am an idealist that can see what the possibilities are, and my disappointment and frustration get the better of me when that doen't occur, and people make comments about leaving well enough alone, and let nature take its course.