War in the Amazon?

A fascinating story and pics from Survival International. At a time when the world is grappling with sustainability issues, the continuing pattern of encroachment, theft and cultural genocide continues to feed unsustainable practices such as deforestation which have already messed up the planet.

Members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air near the Brazil-Peru border. The photos were taken during several flights over one of the remotest parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil’s Acre state...

Meirelles says that the group’s numbers are increasing. But other uncontacted groups in the region, whose homes have been photographed from the air, are in severe danger from illegal logging in Peru. Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.

‘What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the ‘civilised’ ones, treat the world,’ said Meirelles.

Why is it that war seems to always go hand in hand with human rights abuses, economic expansion and environmental destruction? Colonizers have always used the strategy of encouraging indigenous peoples to make war on each other.


"F*** off"


"P*** off"


"Go away"

Stories of "uncontacted peoples" always piqued my interest as a young boy. In 1979 I was fortunate enough to travel by river through Guatemala & Mexico and honoured to spend a few days as a guest of a group of Lacandons in far southern Mexico.