Rights & Tenure in the News » In Amazonia, defending the hidden
tribes An article in the Washington Post recounts the
difficulties to grant Amazonian tribes the rights they are
entitled to when those tribes are largely unknown. In Brazil
alone there could be as much as 67 uncontacted tribes.
Indigenous rights advocate argue that logging and mining should
be limited in unexplored areas to prevent disrupting the tribes.
In Peru, energy company interest groups reply that in the
absence of evidence the tribes exist, there is no reason to stop
the exploration and exploitation of natural resources. The new
policy of the Brazilian government is to leave the initiative of
contact to the isolated groups, but to protect the area where
they are suspected to live. However, the shrinking of the forest
cover makes unexpected encounters with those groups more and
more likely, raising the question of who has the legitimacy to
speak for indigenous tribes and to determine what their best
interest is. Read the article here. Pos