Ecologists have photographed a little-known nomadic tribe deep in Peru's Amazon, a sighting that could intensify debate about the presence of isolated Indians as oil firms line up to explore the jungle.
Carrying arrows and living in palm-leaf huts on the banks of the Las Piedras river, the tribe was glimpsed last week by researchers flying over the Alto Purus national park near the Brazilian border to look for illegal loggers.
"We saw them by chance. There were three huts and about 21 Indians -- children, women and young people," said Ricardo Hon, a forest scientist at the National Institute of Natural Resources.
Hon said an indigenous group using the same kind of huts was seen in the region in the 1980s and advocacy groups said they appeared to be part of the Mascho Piro tribe.
The sighting of the indigenous group came as the Peruvian government is encouraging foreign companies to look for oil in the rainforest.
Environmental and Indian rights groups firmly oppose the exploration in the remote jungle area about 900km east of Lima.
Indigenous people who have shunned contact with the rest of society are believed to live within some of the dozens of parcels being auctioned across the country for petroleum prospecting, some of them in the Amazon.
"The Peruvian government is actively promoting oil and gas exploration in areas where uncontacted tribes live," said David Hill, a researcher at the London-based rights group Survival International.
The organization estimates that up to 15 isolated tribes live in Peru, the most after Brazil and Papua in Indonesia.
Peru's state oil company PetroPeru says it considers tribes that shy away from outsiders to be safe as they live in protected reserve areas, which are excluded from petroleum auctions.
But its president, Daniel Saba, was criticized earlier this year for saying the notion of hidden tribes was "absurd."
Rights groups say nomadic tribes travel in and out of national parks depending on the season and encroaching loggers or oil company workers could expose them to deadly diseases. In the past, disease halved many Amazon tribal populations.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS