Background briefings

Why do they hide?

Many tribal people who are today ‘uncontacted’ are in fact the survivors (or survivors’ descendants) of past atrocities. These acts – massacres, disease epidemics, terrifying violence – are seared into their collective memory, and contact with the...

The most isolated tribe in the world?

In the days after the cataclysmic tsunami of 2004, as the full scale of the destruction and horror wreaked upon the islands of the Indian Ocean became apparent, the fate of the tribal peoples of the Andaman Islands remained a mystery.

Just for fun

In India’s Andaman Islands, during the 1970s and 80s the local administration arranged numerous trips to the isolated Jarawa and Sentinelese tribes with little thought to the devastating consequences these might have.

Making Contact

Although most invasions of uncontacted tribes’ lands are prompted by the desire of loggers, oil companies, cattle ranchers and so forth to take the tribes’ lands and resources, governments sometimes try to make contact for their own reasons.

Dams

Dam construction is a menace to tribal peoples across the world. Once-stable river basins become flooded and river beds diverted as governments look for ways to increase electricity output. Local people usually suffer most, being forced off their ...

FUNAI - National Indian Foundation (Brazil)

FUNAI, the National Indian Foundation, is the Brazilian government body that establishes and carries out policies relating to Indigenous peoples. FUNAI is responsible for mapping out and protecting lands traditionally inhabited and used by these c...

Perenco - Oil company

Perenco is a Anglo-French company which has a huge oil project in Peru’s northern Amazon. This is an area inhabited by at least two vulnerable uncontacted tribes who may well be destroyed by Perenco’s work there. One of the groups is believed to...

Perupetro - Peruvian national oil firm

Perupetro contracts oil and gas companies to work in Peru. To date, 72% of the Peruvian Amazon has been opened up to companies. Some of these regions are home to vulnerable uncontacted tribes. A loophole in Peruvian law explicitly allows compani...

Petrobras - Brazilian national oil firm

Brazilian state oil company Petrobras has a contract to explore for oil in the south-east of Peru in an area inhabited by the uncontacted Murunahua (or Chitonahua) tribe. This is despite the fact that Brazilian government policy is not to make c...

Petrolifera - Canadian oil firm in Peru

Petrolifera is a Canadian company exploring for oil on land inhabited by uncontacted Cacataibo Indians in Peru. Despite being condemned by a local Indigenous organisation, Petrolifera is determined to work in the region. Some seismic tests have ...

Logging

Logging is a highly profitable and destructive business. Many companies and groups supplying the industry are prepared to do whatever it takes to get their hands on wood. This is often at the expense of tribal peoples. Loggers destroy the forest...

Niyamgiri Hills, India

The Niyamgiri Hills form a mountain range in the Eastern Indian state of Orissa. They are home to more than 8,000 of the Dongria Kondh people, whose lifestyle and religion have helped nurture the area’s dense forests and unusually rich wildlife....