Amazing Photos: Untouched Native Amazon Tribe
This is a stray from our usual content but exciting enough to post for anyone interested in adventure, the outdoors, and the effects of industrialization and logging in South America. Recently an un-contacted (by “civilized man”) tribe was found in the far west reaches of Brazil’s Amazon Basin on the Peruvian border. They were photographed by aircraft and are seen painted bright red pointing their bow and arrow weapons at the craft in defense!
The integrity of the Amazon Basin has been under increased pressure from logging companies and new infrastructure allowing deeper penetration from said companies to pillage the jungle for precious woods. With each new road acres upon acres of deforestation can be seen (by google maps!) stretching out in square scars on either side. The Transamazonica Highway was one of the first built through the dense jungle to connect both sides of Brazil in the early 1970’s. The project was abandoned due to funding issues before its completion but it has served as a gateway to illegal logging and further road development in one of the world’s most precious jungles.
Indigenous peoples have inhabited this part of the country (considered “empty”) for thousands of years living in harmony with the ecosystem until logging activity has pushed them to the fringes. Although it is exciting to see that such people still exist, these are sad circumstances we are finding them under. Although it is easy to think that the sides are clearly divided such that there are those in the wrong and they know it and are greedy, the results of deforestation are also built on miscommunication, misunderstanding, and poverty. Greed and money by certain individuals does contribute of course to huge amounts of jungle loss, however the misplacement of subsistence farmers and mismanagement of farm lands by uneducated owners also leads to the sprawling decay of the Amazon as we are watching today. So although I was very intrigued to read about this tribe, the sad truth is that a part of the world that we could learn and benefit so much from is being lost. [via: Survival International] (See our follow up post)
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