http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/isolatedperu#mainSurvival estimates there are
15 uncontacted tribes in Peru. All of them live in the most remote, isolated regions of the Amazon rainforest.
They include the Cacataibo, Isconahua, Matsigenka, Mashco-Piro, Mastanahua, Murunahua (or Chitonahua), Nanti and Yora.
Multiple threats
All of these peoples face terrible threats – to their land, livelihoods and, ultimately, their lives. If nothing is done, they are likely to disappear entirely.
Uncontacted tribes are extremely vulnerable to any form of contact with outsiders because they do not have immunity to Western diseases.
International law recognises the Indians’ land as theirs, just as it recognises their right to live on it as they want to.
Following first contact, it is common for more than 50% of a tribe to die. Sometimes all of them perish.
That law is not being respected by the Peruvian government or the companies who are invading tribal land.
Uncontacted for good reason
Everything we know about these isolated Indians makes it clear they seek to maintain their isolation.
On the very rare occasions when they are seen or encountered, they make it clear they want to be left alone.
Sometimes they react aggressively, as a way of defending their territory, or leave signs in the forest warning outsiders away.
The Indians have suffered horrific violence and diseases brought by outsiders in the past. For many this suffering continues today. They clearly have very good reason not to want contact.
What can we do about it?
Survival is urging the Peruvian government to protect these isolated Indians by not allowing any oil exploration, logging or other form of natural resource extraction on their land.
The government must recognise the Indians as the owners of their land.
After a Survival campaign in the 1990s, in collaboration with local indigenous organisation FENAMAD, the oil company Mobil pulled out of an area inhabited by uncontacted tribes in south-east Peru.
The greatest threats to Peru’s uncontacted Indians are oil workers and illegal loggers.
More than 70% of the Peruvian Amazon has been leased by the government to oil companies. Much of this includes regions inhabited by uncontacted tribes.
Oil exploration is particularly dangerous to the Indians because it opens up previously remote areas to other outsiders, such as loggers and colonists. They use the roads and paths made by the exploration teams to enter.
‘My people all died. Their eyes started to hurt, they started to cough, they got sick and died right there in the forest.’
NAHUA WOMAN DESCRIBES CONTACT
Shell and the Nahua tragedy
In the past, oil exploration has led to violent and disastrous contact with isolated Indians.
In the early 1980s, exploration by Shell led to contact with the isolated Nahua tribe. Within a few years more than 50% of the Nahua had died.
Several oil companies are now working in areas where uncontacted Indians live, including the territories of the Cacataibo and Nanti tribes.
These companies are Perenco, which has taken over Barrett Resources, Repsol-YPF and Petrolifera.
Meanwhile, Peru describes its policy to international companies as ‘open door’. The government is actively encouraging new companies to explore in areas inhabited by uncontacted tribes including the Mashco-Piro and Isconahua.
Mahogany: ‘Red gold’
The other principal threat is illegal loggers, many of them after mahogany. Known as ‘red gold’, mahogany commands a very high price on the global market.
Peru’s rainforest has some of the last commercially viable mahogany stands anywhere in the world, prompting a ‘red gold fever’ for the last of them.
Tragically, these are the same regions where the isolated Indians live, meaning that loggers invade their territory and contact is almost inevitable.
In 1996 illegal loggers forced contact with the Murunahua Indians. In the following years over 50% of them died, mainly from colds, flu and other respiratory infections.
What can you do:http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/isolatedperu/thethreats#actnow
