BOGOTA, Colombia — From the depths of Amazon of Brazil To the rainforests of Indonesia, some of the world’s most isolated towns are being crushed by roads, miners and drug traffickers – a crisis unfolding far from public view or effective state protection.
A new report from Survival International, a London-based indigenous rights organization, attempts one of the largest counts yet, identifying at least 196 isolated people. indigenous groups in 10 countries, mainly in the South American nations that share the Amazon rainforest. Published on Sunday, the report It is estimated that almost 65% face threats from logging, around 40% from mining, and around 20% from agribusiness.
“These are what I would call silent genocides – there are no TV crews, no journalists. But they are happening, and they are happening now,” said Fiona Watson, director of research and advocacy at Survival, which has worked on indigenous rights for more than three decades.
The issue often receives low priority from governments, which critics say view isolated peoples as politically marginal because they do not vote and their territories are often coveted for logging, mining and oil drilling. Public debate is also shaped by stereotypes: some idealize them as “lost tribes,” while others see them as barriers to development.
Survival research concludes that half of these groups “could be eliminated within 10 years if governments and companies do not act.”
Isolated peoples are not “lost tribes” frozen in time, Watson said. They are contemporary societies that deliberately avoid outsiders after generations of violence, slavery and disease.
“They don’t need anything from us,” Watson said. “They are happy in the forest. They have incredible knowledge and help keep these valuable forests standing, essential for all humanity in the fight against climate change.”
Survival research shows that more than 95% of the world’s uncontacted people live in the Amazon, with smaller populations in South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. These communities live by hunting, fishing, and small-scale farming, maintaining languages and traditions that predate modern nation-states.
Groups living in voluntary isolation have “minimal or no contact with those outside their own group,” said Dr. Subhra Bhattacharjee, CEO of the Forest Stewardship Council and an indigenous rights expert based in Bonn, Germany. “A simple cold that you and I recovered from in a week… they could die from that cold.”
Beyond disease, contact can destroy livelihoods and belief systems. International law requires free, prior and informed consent, known as FPIC, before any activity on indigenous lands.
“But when there are groups living in voluntary isolation, who you cannot approach without risking their lives, you cannot get FPIC,” Bhattacharjee said. “No FPIC means no consent.”
His organization follows a strict policy: “No contact, no zones,” he said, arguing that if consent cannot be obtained safely, contact should not occur at all.
The Associated Press reported last year on the loggers. killed by bow and arrow after entering Mashco Piro territory in the Peruvian Amazon, and indigenous leaders warned that such clashes are inevitable when border areas are unguarded.
Watson, who has worked in the Amazon for 35 years, said the first threats arose from colonization and state-backed infrastructure. During The military dictatorship of Brazil between 1964 and 1985roads were demolished through the rainforest “without due consideration” for the people who lived there.
“The roads acted like a magnet for settlers,” he said, describing how loggers and ranchers followed them, bringing armed men and diseases that wiped out entire communities.
A rail line currently planned in Brazil could potentially affect three isolated towns, he said, but the rise of organized crime poses an even greater risk.
In Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, drug traffickers and illegal gold miners They have penetrated deeply into indigenous territories. “Any chance encounter runs the risk of transmitting influenza, which can easily wipe out an uncontacted people within a year of contact,” he said. “And bows and arrows are no match for guns.”
Incursions by evangelical missionaries have also caused outbreaks. Watson remembers how, under the previous Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaroan evangelical pastor was put in charge of the government unit for the isolated towns and gained access to its coordinates. “Their mission was to force contact, to ‘save souls,’” he said. “That’s incredibly dangerous.”
Protecting isolated peoples, experts say, will require stricter laws and a change in the way the world views them: not as relics of the past, but as citizens of the planet whose survival affects the future of all.
Advocates have several recommendations.
First, governments must formally recognize and enforce indigenous territories, making them beyond the reach of extractive industries.
Mapping is crucial, Bhattacharjee said, because identifying the approximate territories of isolated villages allows governments to protect those areas from loggers and miners. But, he added, it must be done with extreme caution and from a distance to avoid contacts that could endanger the health or autonomy of the groups.
Second, corporations and consumers must help stop the flow of money that creates destruction. Survival’s report calls on companies to track their supply chains to ensure commodities such as gold, timber and soy do not come from indigenous lands.
“Public opinion and pressure are essential,” Watson said. “It is largely through citizens and the media that much has already been achieved to recognize isolated peoples and their rights.”
Finally, advocates say the world must recognize why their protection is important. Beyond human rights, these communities play an enormous role in stabilizing the global climate.
“With the world under pressure from climate change, we will sink or swim together,” Bhattacharjee said.
International treaties such as Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirm the right to self-determination and to remain isolated if they wish. But enforcement varies widely.
In Peru, Congress recently rejected proposal to create the Yavari-Mirim Indigenous Reservea measure that, according to indigenous federations, leaves isolated groups exposed to loggers and traffickers.
In Brazil, the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has tried to rebuild protections weakened under Bolsonaro, increasing budgets and patrols.
And in Ecuador, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled this year that the government failed to protect the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples who live in voluntary isolation in the Yasuní National Park.
Watson warned that political forces linked to agribusiness and evangelical blocs are now working to roll back previous gains.
“The achievements of the last 20 or 30 years are at risk of being dismantled,” he said.
The Survival International report calls for a global policy of no contact: legal recognition of isolated territories, suspension of mining, oil and agribusiness projects on or near those lands and prosecution of crimes against indigenous groups.
Watson said logging remains the biggest threat, but mining is a close second. He pointed to the isolated Hongana Manyawa on Indonesia’s Halmahera Island, where nickel is mined for electric vehicle batteries.
“People think electric cars are an environmentally friendly alternative,” he said, “but mining companies are operating on the lands of isolated villages and pose enormous threats.”
In South America, illegal gold miners in the Yanomami territory Brazil and Venezuela continue to use mercury to extract gold, pollution that has poisoned rivers and fish.
“The impact is devastating, socially and physically,” Watson said.
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