Loggers Still Advance on Amazon Indians - Official
BRAZIL: September 15, 2008
BRASILIA - Isolated native Indians in the Amazon forest of Brazil and Peru
remain threatened by advancing loggers despite growing international
attention to their plight, a senior Brazilian official said on Thursday.
"Pressure from Peruvian loggers continues, it's a concern," Marcio Meira,
head of the government's Indian affairs agency, Funai, told the foreign
press association in Brasilia.
Brazil's Acre state along the border with Peru is one of the world's last
refuges for such groups, but increasing activity by wildcat miners and
loggers puts them at risk.
Dramatic pictures of pigment-covered Indians from the region threatening the
photographer's aircraft with bows and arrows were carried in May by media
worldwide.
The Peruvian ambassador to Brazil subsequently told Meira his government was
concerned about the issue and preparing measures, without detailing what
these were.
Brazil has 26 confirmed native Indian tribes that live with little or no
contact with the outside world. There are unconfirmed reports of an
additional 35 such groups.
Many of them live in the forest like their forefathers did centuries ago,
hunting and gathering.
More than three months after the photographs sparked an international media
frenzy, Funai officials continue to witness logging activity in the region.
"There is evidence. We see timber floating down the river which originates
in Peru," said Meira.
Survival International, a group that campaigns for tribal peoples' rights,
said last week that the Peruvian government had not lived up to its promise
of publishing an investigation into accusations of illegal logging.
"The Peruvian government must not be allowed to bury this issue, or to turn
their backs on the uncontacted tribes," said Survival's director, Stephen
Corry.
The issue will be discussed at an international conference on native Indians
in Georgetown, Guyana, later this month, Meira said.
Advancing loggers also threaten isolated tribes in Brazil's northern Mato
Gross state and along the upper Xingu river in Para state, Meira said.
(Reporting by Raymond Colitt, editing by Ross Colvin)
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