Survival International has released new photos of an “uncontacted” indigenous band in Peru. With illegal logging interests and proposed highway projects rapidly encroaching on their territory, Peru’s government has denied the “uncontacted” peoples exist.
The US appeals court in Manhattan lifted an injunction won by Chevon Corporation to block enforcement of what the US oil company claims is a fraudulent, multibillion-dollar judgment in Ecuador for polluting the Amazon rainforest.
Loggers have invaded the Brazilian Amazon home of an “uncontacted” Awa-Gwajá band, a sub-group of the Awá indigenous people, after a young girl was reportedly burned alive as a warning to terrorize the band.
The Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios in Ecuador upheld a multi-billion dollar fine against Chevron for polluting large areas of the Amazon rainforest in the 1980s. Chevron protested the ruling as illegitimate and unenforceable.
Monica Chuji, Ecuador’s former communications minister under President Rafael Correa and a leading indigenous activist, was sentenced to a year in prison for “defamation”—stemming from her resignation over repression of protests.
One man was killed by an arrow shot by an “isolated” or “uncontacted” indigenous band in Peru’s Madre de Dios region, according to the indigenous alliance FENAMAD—which has long refuted claims that the isolated bands don’t exist.
A federal court in Brazil ruled that work on the Belo Monte dam being built on the Xingu River in the Amazon rainforest may continue, finding that the consent of indigenous people is not a prerequisite for construction.
Raquel Yrigoyen Fajardo, fired as head of Peru’s indigenous affair agency, is publicly accusing the government of removing her because she annulled the agency’s approval of an environmental impact study for expansion of the Camisea gas-fields.
After the cross-country Eighth Indigenous March arrived in La Paz to a tumultuous welcome, President Evo Morales announced that he would alter plans for the road linking Bolivia with Brazil so that it will not pass through the TIPNIS indigenous reserve.
A ranger in Peru’s remote Manu national park was lightly wounded in a confrontation with an “uncontacted” indigenous band, which fired arrows on a patrol boat. Authorities expressed concern for the health of the isolated bands if they are contacted.
Despite a new law that supposedly halts the controversial highway through the Bolivian rainforest, construction in fact continues. Supporters of President Evo Morales rallied in La Paz in favor of the road, as the cross-country march in protest of it continues.
A Colombian photographer who works with the threatened Nukak indigenous group received a death threat accusing him of being a guerilla—while the FARC guerillas hijacked a shipment of medical supplies bound for the Nukak.
