by douglas reeser on 2.3.11Survival International and the BBC Human Planet project have just released this amazing video footage of an uncontacted tribe in the rainforest of Peru. They hope that showing the world that such tribes do exist, the Peruvian government will yield to pressure calling for a stop to logging concessions being granted in the region. From the SI website:
"Peru’s President Garcia has publicly suggested uncontacted tribes have been ‘invented’ by ‘environmentalists’ opposed to oil exploration in the Amazon. This unique film shows uncontacted Indians on the Brazil-Peru border in never-seen-before detail. It is the first-ever aerial footage of an uncontacted community."
The Huffington Post reports that Peru's government, in response to the video, has already announced that they intend to work with Brazil to prevent further encroachment from loggers. Time will tell if this is simply talk to appease local and international activists or a substantive claim that will result in real action. For more information and photos, visit Survival International here>>>
And please be sure to e-sign the petition at the end of the video! We must support the rights of those who have their rights denied!
That's a crazy shot. Hopefully the government will fold knowing that there are lives out there they may be wrecking without knowing it. Unfortunately governments aren't so good about caring about such things.
ReplyDeleteThis footage is so surreal ... we're talking 'uncontacted', while viewing on a computer screen, via the internet, along with millions of other people. It makes you stop, and takes you out of this digitized, interconnected world for a small moment.
ReplyDeleteI wonder about the mention of filming from a kilometer away to 'minimize' disturbance. Clearly from the way the people are watching the airplane, they notice. But I guess that is part of the trade off -- if publishing their story is the only way to preserve their rights, then disturbance is unavoidable.
I also can't help but be reminded of the debates that rocked the anthro-sphere a few months ago, and how some of the fundamentalist-science responses to respecting different ways of knowing would most likely be applied here: I mean, really, how much *money* in pharmaceuticals and logging and a whole bunch of other shit is wasting away under the postmodern banner of human rights?? Ugh.
That's amazing! Must be weird for them because they know there are things in the world they know nothing about, or do they think the plane is a god?
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting idea - to see something and know nothing about it. I should note that there is a good debate happening about whether or not this group is truly uncontacted. Some people are saying that they have intentionally moved to this area because of its protected status. Still, they are living in a drastically different way than people in most of the rest of the world. And whether they have experienced planes or other Western technology or not, the idea that they may not know what a plane is is truly intriguing. I would surmise that they have an explanation based on the fact that many of us, when faced with a new product or technology, have some explanation for it based on what we already know. This explanation can fall anywhere on the spectrum from being exactly right to being completely wrong. Still, there remains the interpretation, and in this case, the interpretation is what would be interesting to know....
ReplyDelete