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Peru Looks For Natives Who Shun Outsiders

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The Associated Press

Published: June 5, 2008

LIMA, Peru - Photos of isolated Indians near Peru's border are prompting new efforts to find and protect such people from threats to their land and lives - although senior officials have questioned whether they even exist.

The national government is sending a team of experts to a remote jungle region to investigate claims by a Brazilian researcher that illegal logging in Peru is driving isolated Indian tribes across the border into his country, said Ronald Ibarra, who heads the government's Office of Native Peoples and Afro-Peruvians.

Brazil's government last week released rare aerial photos showing near-naked people, painted red and black, standing beside thatched huts firing arrows at an airplane - images that reminded the world about the existence of tribes that shun contact with the outside world.
Anthropologists say there could be as many as 14 groups in Peru and dozens in Brazil. Peru is eager to exploit possible oil and gas reserves in the area where they live, and loggers eye valuable timber there.

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