Overflight of uncontacted tribes' land by Peru's government
October 3, 2009
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Peru’s Indigenous affairs department, INDEPA, has announced it will carry out an overflight of an uncontacted tribes’ reserve in the remote Amazon.
The announcement came after the publication of photos showing an illegal logging camp in the reserve, which were taken by the US-based organisation Round River Conservation Studies and released worldwide by Survival.
INDEPA said it would take action immediately after the publication of the photos, but until the recent announcement it was not clear what that action would consist of.
‘If we find evidence of loggers or others engaged in illegal activities, we will take the relevant course of action to stop it,’ said INDEPA’s president, Mayta Capac Alatrista.
The logging camp was spotted in the Murunahua Reserve, inhabited by at least one uncontacted tribe known as the Murunahua or Chitonahua. The reserve was created in 1997, but loggers have regularly entered it looking for valuable timber such as mahogany and cedar.
Some Murunahua have already been contacted – a catastrophic experience that led to an estimated 50% of them dying.
Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, has a contract to explore in the reserve. Survival has written to the company urging it not to work there.
