UN expert calls for more protection for
uncontacted tribes
Uncontacted tribes are
the most vulnerable peoples on the planet
© Survival The
UN’s top expert on indigenous peoples has
highlighted the need for South American states “to
redouble efforts to protect the territories” of
uncontacted tribes.
Addressing
a meeting of the Latin American Network for
Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention in New York
earlier this month, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said
that pressure on uncontacted tribes’ land has
caused “a growing wave of contacts and
interactions in the border regions between Peru
and Brazil, some initiated by isolated indigenous
peoples themselves as a result of the dire
circumstances they live in due to incursions on
their lands.”
She
stressed the urgent need to address the threats to
their land. The reported
killing last month of a group of around 10
uncontacted Indians by illegal goldminers in
Brazil’s Amazon made headlines round the world
highlighting how vulnerable these people are when
governments fail to protect their lands.
Drawing
attention to the importance of guidelines which
uphold uncontacted tribes’ right to remain
uncontacted as “an expression of the right to
self-determination”, she said their situation
should be “part of the action plans and programmes
of the highest-level political bodies of the
United Nations and Organization of American
States.”
There
are more than a hundred uncontacted tribes around
the world. They are a vitally important part of
humankind’s diversity, but they face catastrophe
unless their land is protected. Survival is doing
everything it can to secure their land for them,
and to let them live. Watch
our new film.
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11844
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