In the last few weeks, a protest by the Enawene Nawe people of Brazil temporarily took a dam building site out of action. They are fighting the construction of the many dams creeping up on the river that feeds their community.

These photos show what was once the Amazon rainforest, now at the mercy of electricity consumers somewhere far away, whilst the dam kills the fish that the tribe relies on.

To some people, this is development, this is progress, it’s what ‘will help lift poor Brazilians out of poverty by creating the facilities the country needs for new jobs and good living’.

Dams and ‘development’ will, in fact, severely degrade the ancestral lands of Brazil’s indigenous people and make an underclass of the people themselves, bringing starvation, disease and misery along the way.

A horrific repeat of history

This is what happened to the Innu of Canada, who suffered as the government forced them away from their land and communities to ‘benefit from Western society’.

The ‘benefits’ left them with high rates of drug addiction, alcoholism, disease and suicide. This sort of integration is usually a forced social experiment with an unhappy ending.

The Guarani are another Brazilian tribe who are now in the grip of malnutrition, disease and ongoing strife as they desperately seek to reclaim their lands.

Living on roadsides, they are the victims of forced eviction as the economy has driven the invasions into their territory. So depressing is their plight that the Guarani now suffer one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

The Enawene Nawe have therefore taken matters into their own hands as the Brazilian government fails in its duty to protect them by encouraging the dams that will destroy their livelihood. This is a serious time for the tribe and they are running out of options. These are the results of their protest.

To Mr. Mereilles, a government official in charge of monitoring isolated Indians on Brazil’s western frontier, The Observer article must have been even more of a shock than the astounding photographs themselves. In it, he is wrongly alleged to have misled the world. His letter of correction is below, including the sections, in red, that the Observer chose to leave out in publication.

Dear Editor,

Your article (”Secret of the ‘lost’ tribe that wasn’t”, June 22) completely distorts the work I have been doing on behalf of the Brazilian government for the last two decades, to defend the isolated Indian groups of Acre state, Brazil.

I find it very surprising that you did not talk to me before publishing an inaccurate article that suggests I misled people about the uncontacted tribe whose photos were published around the world.

I have not ‘admitted’ that the tribe was known about before we took the photos of them. I have always made that perfectly clear. The statement we released together with the photos contains a statement from me that ‘In this region there are four distinct isolated tribes, that we have monitored for twenty years’.

Your writer is confusing ‘uncontacted’ ‹ that is, no contact with outside society ‹ with ‘undiscovered’. No-one who works in this field would ever describe the many isolated tribes in the Amazon as ’undiscovered’, as we have a good idea where most of them are. But that does not mean that we make contact with them – quite the contrary, we are monitoring their territory to make sure no outsiders can enter.

Your article, by suggesting there was something dishonest about the photos, has made our job harder, and will be used by the Indians’ many enemies.

Yours sincerely,

José Carlos dos Reyes Meirelles Jr,
FUNAI Coordinator of the Ethno-environmental protection zone, Envira River, Acre, Brazil

The damage that this article has done is difficult to measure, yet we can be sure that it has set back the fight for tribal peoples’ rights. It sits proudly at the summit of journalistic irresponsibility.

Despite this, The Observer maintains the original article, without any corrections, on its website, acting as a reference to anyone hoping to ‘prove’ that the uncontacted tribe photographed from the air in early 2008, wasn’t.

  Julie Christie at a Survival demonstration

Last year Survival asked me to narrate a short film about the plight of uncontacted peoples living in some of the most remote parts of the world. I’ve long been a supporter, and thought this would be one way that I could make a valuable and lasting contribution.

I was unprepared for just how deeply moved I would be by the footage Survival had put together, and the intimate stories of these vulnerable peoples struggling to survive. Amongst the remarkable scenes filmed by Survival researchers, one above all has stayed with me. A pitiful group of just six individuals, the last survivors of a once-proud tribe called the Akuntsu, sit forlornly in a forest clearing.

Having witnessed the massacre of all the other members of their tribe by cattle ranchers desperate for their land, their lethargy and utter despondency is hardly surprising. Yet still they rouse themselves to perform a shuffling dance of welcome. Heartbreaking.

Words seem woefully inadequate to convey their despair; but this short piece of film strikes at the heart of their story, helps us to understand and moves us to act. Survival is appealing for support to create a film unit, to ensure scenes like this reach many more people.

This need not be overly expensive; Survival researchers gather a wealth of video footage when visiting tribal communities, but it takes time and resources to edit, produce and distribute a film like Uncontacted Tribes.

Already this film has generated worldwide interest. For example, a newspaper in India recently gave one of our DVDs to all its readers. This has been one of many fantastic opportunities to get our message across using film, but of course there are cost implications.

With more resources, Survival could produce numerous films showing the reality of life for many of the world’s tribes; the deforestation of their homes, the sickness and disease they suffer as a result of invasions of their land, but also their dignity and endurance.

Survival’s goal is to get more people to see and understand more about tribal peoples. Such a groundswell of support will make it impossible for governments to sweep tribes aside and deny them what is rightfully theirs.

Tragically, it is too late for the Akuntsu; there simply is no way back for such a tiny group of survivors. But for every story like theirs, there are others – because of you – that are more encouraging.

Next year will be Survival’s 40th anniversary. I have been a supporter for most of that time and have seen just how many peoples Survival has helped. In the 1980s, the Yanomami were facing a bleak future, following invasions of their land by goldminers.

In fact more than a fifth of the tribe were wiped out. Decades of campaigning by Survival resulted in an historic victory, with almost 10 million hectares of rainforest secured for the tribe. In the words of Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami leader and shaman, ‘Without Survival, we’d all be dead’.

I’m proud to have been a part of the Uncontacted Tribes project, and I hope this film – and those that follow – will help make the world more aware, and help to secure the future of tribal peoples for generations to come.

The British newspaper The Observer claimed this weekend that it’s now ‘emerged’ that the uncontacted tribe whose photos went around the world were neither ‘lost’, nor ‘undiscovered’ nor ‘unknown’.

This is a classic example of journalists getting the wrong end of the stick. The only people who ever claimed that the Indians photographed were ‘lost’ or ‘undiscovered’ were…. the press, despite the fact that Survival has been campaigning for the protection of the many isolated Indian tribes on the Peru-Brazil border for more than twenty years.

Indeed, you might have thought that the fact that the Indians are living in a government reserve set aside for isolated Indian groups would tend to indicate that they weren’t exactly ‘unknown’.

For the avoidance of doubt, let’s just make it clear – yes, the tribe is uncontacted, that is to say, has no peaceful contact with outsiders. But no, they’re not ‘lost’ – they know where they are, and anthropologists, Survival, other NGOs and the Brazilian government have known that there are many isolated Indian tribes living in that region for decades.

What is undoubtedly true is that many people, not least the President of Peru, had publicly questioned whether there were any uncontacted Indians there at all, which is why the fact that Peru’s government has now been pushed into sending a team to investigate is such welcome news.

I guess we should be used by now to the fact that quite a few journalists are incapable of writing on this subject without resorting to stereotypes about ‘lost’ tribes, but one might have hoped that The Observer would know better.

Twenty-one Indians in one photo, one woman in another. Peer closely and her message to the outside world is clear: ‘Keep away!’

‘It is like the Loch Ness monster. Everyone seems to have seen or heard about uncontacted peoples, but there is no evidence,’ said a spokesperson from Peru’s state oil company. Have you ever seen photos of the Loch Ness monster as good as these? I don’t think so.

Of course, there are many more than just these uncontacted Indians in Peru, and all of them have made it clear, time and time again, they don’t want contact with outsiders. And certainly not with loggers, or oil companies. How would you like it if a stranger turned up one day and said they would chop down or dynamite your home?

This recent sighting has been picked up by media all around the world. See this video footage on the BBC, or an article in The Guardian that Survival contributed to.

For all the world to see, then, but this is as close as any of us should ever get – until the people themselves decide otherwise.

More about Peru’s isolated Indians.

The BBC’s hit series Tribe returns to the UK’s TV screens on Tuesday 21st August as presenter Bruce Parry visits the Matis tribe of the Brazilian Amazon.

Survival’s campaigner Fiona Watson has also visited the Matis. I asked her about her experiences on the trip and for an update on the situation the Matis face right now. You can watch her talking about her time with the Matis, together with some video taken on that trip, here:

If you want to help the Matis in their struggle against disease in the Javari Valley, please write to the Brazilian Health Minister. Survival has written a model letter for you.

The third series of Tribe will also see Parry visit the Nenet of Siberia, the Anuta of the Solomon Islands, the Akie of Tanzania, the Layap of Bhutan and the Penan of Sarawak, Malaysia.

Bruce Parry says, ‘We have so much to learn from tribal peoples and yet they themselves are frequently facing extreme difficulties or extinction. I hope that our series may have touched you in some way and I recommend your contacting Survival International to find out more about the global plight of indigenous peoples and how you may help.’

Jonathan Mazower, Research Co-ordinator at Survival, has just returned from Paraguay. Jonathan was finding out about the situation that uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode face in the country’s rapidly-disappearing Chaco forests.

Here he speaks to Katya Brooks about his trip and how Survival supporters can help the Ayoreo reclaim their traditional territory.

[audio:ayoreo_podcast.mp3]

(use the player above or download the mp3 file)

Imagine living on your own, in complete silence, always on the run, always fearful, invisible to the world. This is daily life for one solitary man in the Amazon. He’s the sole survivor of his tribe. We don’t know who he is, the name of his tribe or what language he speaks. His people were probably massacred by cattle ranchers who are invading the region at break neck speed.

It’s eery walking through the tiny patch of forest where he lives. His presence is everywhere and I can sense him watching our every move. Mario and Pedro, our Indian guides, point to one of his hunting shelters made of leaves, and a palm tree which he has chopped down to extract the palm heart.

He’s known simply as the ‘Man of the Hole’ because of the huge holes he builds, either to trap animals or to hide in. Here is the hole (over six feet deep) in a tiny maloca (house) he abandoned, built of straw and thatch. Get too near and he will fire an arrow in warning. Last year he hit Tunio, who works for FUNAI, Brazil’s Indian Affairs Department. Fortunately, Tunio quickly recovered.Walking into somebody’s home uninvited feels like trespassing. Here are carved arrow heads, calabashes for storing water, dried nuts and a torch he has made from resin. His garden is brimming with produce – paw paw, manioc and corn. He will probably come under cover of night to gather the fruits when they are ripe . It must have taken him days to chop down the trees, single handed, to make the clearing.

We are not however voyeuristic interlopers. There’s a serious point to our visit. FUNAI wants to establish whether he is still alive, and if possible make friendly contact because they fear for his safety. Some of the ranchers have their eye on his land and there are plenty of trigger happy gun men who would think nothing of bumping him off for the cost of a night on the town. Not for nothing do many Brazilians call Rondônia the ‘bang bang’ state.

I am here because I want to tell his story as part of Survival’s ‘Uncontacted Tribes’ campaign, for the rights of isolated peoples around the world.

Some months after my visit I receive a rare piece of good news: FUNAI has decided not to contact the ‘Man of the Hole’, but to enlarge his tiny territory by 3,000 hectares to give him more space and more game to hunt. I hope that now he will have the chance to live out his life in peace.