"The photos made headlines around the world and threw uncontacted tribes into the international spotlight, provoking public outrage at the threats to their land, livelihoods and lives," said Survival, an itinternational indigenous-rights group based in the UK.
"In spite of this, however, uncontacted tribes around the world are facing extinction," the British-based organization said in a report, "Uncontacted Tribes Face Extinction," published on the anniversary of last year's photos. "Governments, companies and others ignore their rights, and invade and destroy their land with impunity."
The report exposes the plight of the world's most threatened uncontacted tribes.
They live in five locations in three South American countries: Paraguay, Brazil and Peru.
They are just a few of the more than 100 uncontacted tribes known to exist worldwide, in South America, the Indian Ocean, and on the island of New Guinea, Survival said.
"Uncontacted tribes face two principal threats to their survival," the report says.
"By far the greatest is their lack of immunity to common Western diseases such as influenza, chicken pox, measles, and a host of respiratory diseases.
"Even where 'first contact' between an isolated tribe and outsiders is carefully managed, it is common for significant numbers of tribespeople to die in the months following contact.
"Where such encounters are not managed, with medical plans in place, the entire tribe, or a large proportion of it, can be wiped out."
Such catastrophes have occurred repeatedly in the Amazon, and not just in the distant past: in 1996, for example, at least half the Murunahua Indians died after they were contacted by illegal mahogany loggers, according to Survival.
The other key threat is simply violence: in several of the cases outlined in the report the tribespeople face gangs of heavily-armed loggers who are likely to shoot them on sight, Survival said.
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Source : http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news
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