News: Peru - Unknown Indian tribe seen on the border
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One of South Americas few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed in one of the most remote parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazils Acre region on the border with Peru, BBC online reports 31/05/08.
The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land. The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe members outside thatched huts, surrounded by the dense jungle, pointing bows and arrows up at the camera.
More than half the worlds 100 uncontacted tribes live in Brazil or Peru, Survival International says. Stephen Corry, the director of the group - which supports tribal people around the world - said such tribes would "soon be made extinct" if their land was not protected.
Survival International says that although this particular group is increasing in number, others in the area are at risk from illegal logging.
Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, an official in the Brazilian governments Indian affairs department described the threats to such tribes and their land as "a monumental crime against the natural world" and "further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the "civilised" ones, treat the world".
Disease is also a risk, as members of tribal groups that have been contacted in the past have died of illnesses that they have no defence against, ranging from chicken pox to the common cold
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