Abstract
Isolated Indigenous peoples are a group of Indigenous tribes that live in voluntary isolation in remote and mostly inaccessible territories. Together with Indigenous peoples in initial contact, Isolated Indigenous peoples are threatened continuously by advancing extractive activities, the absence of public policies and protection measures by the State, and the pressure of illegal activities on their territories. Generating multidimensional public policies that protect these groups is essential. This commentary shares South America’s perspective on the matter as it is the region where most of the isolated groups reside.
Introduction
It is estimated that between 150 and 200 human groups survive in voluntary isolation in remote parts of the world; these groups are known as Isolated Indigenous peoples (IIPs) (Bodley, 2015; Cueva Maza, 2007; Vaz, 2019; Walker et al., 2016; Walker & Hill, 2015). The term “voluntary isolation” means that these groups actively reject integration with groups outside of their territory. The vast majority of IIPs live in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela (Figure 1).
Suggested spatial distribution of most isolated tribes distributed in South America’s Amazon rain’s forest (Google Earth, 2016).
Recent reports have confirmed at least one group in the Great Paraguayan Chaco, in the Andaman Islands, and Papua New Guinea (Bodley, 2015, p. 201; Pappalardo et al., 2013; Pringle, 2014; Survival International, 2018). Human groups living in isolation have attracted the scientific community’s attention, particularly since the beginning of the 20th century (Abel, 1902; Cook, 1909).
The colonization process experienced centuries ago in some parts of the world led some human groups to move outside their previously used lands to maintain their freedom from the colonizers. During the rise of industrialization, some of the remaining free Indigenous groups in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia suffered fast, unethical, and often violent contact from outsiders. As a result, very few groups survive in isolation (Davis & Yost, 1983; Larrick et al., 1979; Spencer, 1914; Walker et al., 2016; Walker & Hill, 2015).
The demand for natural resources continues to increase driven by an ever-increasing population and urbanization. That has led legal and illegal businesses to look for new territories to gather resources in areas where IIPs live. A great number of encounters between IIPs and outsiders has been documented since the 20th century (Bodley, 2015; De Marchi et al., 2015; Feather, 2015; Pappalardo et al., 2013). The evidence of their existence and a renewed interest in human rights led several groups of academics and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to take action to protect these groups’ right to self-determination.
These human groups have been traditionally neglected by the governments ruling the areas where they live. In some cases, business-oriented administrations have tried to deny their existence or to minimize the impact of their contact (Pappalardo et al., 2013; Walker et al., 2016). However, the sustainable development goals set out by the United Nations in 2015 seeks to ensure that nobody is left behind which includes those people who live in voluntary isolation (World Health Organization [WHO], 2016).
The problem
The rapid demographic growth experienced by modern society results in a high demand for goods and services, which generates an increased need for natural resources. Thus, States and private businesses wish to extract natural resources in areas where isolated groups live, compromising their well-being (Finer et al., 2008).
Traditionally, IIPs have been identified as hunters and gatherers, although some groups are shifting cultivators (Denevan, 1992). That means that they use large territory areas to gather resources, making them dependent on their immediate environment to survive (Cabodevilla, 2004; Cabodevilla & López, 2005; OACNUDH, 2012). Their self-sufficiency and determination can only be maintained by remaining distant to continue their way of life (Bodley, 2015; Cabodevilla, 2004; Pringle, 2014), which means that the modern society should have limited access (Damodaran et al., 2017; Finer et al., 2008; Pappalardo et al., 2013).
The main threats
Farms and neighboring tribes
There is a growing demand for new areas of agricultural and livestock farming to feed a modern society. Therefore, the agriculture industries advance into the land where isolated communities exist. That affects the forests and delicate ecosystems where IIP’s live. The change in land-use dynamics, from small hunter-gatherer systems to mass farming, transforms forests into open crops and pastures, which produces an “edge effect” where biological diversity is altered, either increasing or decreasing biodiversity, depending on how it is being measured. Wild animals are driven away by the noise and the pollution generated by farming actions. Also, foreign fauna and flora are introduced in their territories. All this has the effect of diminishing the availability of food for IIPs (Brackelaire, 2007).
The surrounding population can also have deleterious effects on the well-being of IIPs. Indigenous groups are usually seen as savages by mestizo colonizers, which creates a hostile environment toward the IIPs who can be attacked at any slight encounter.
However, as the Ecuadorian experience shows, one of the gravest threats for IIPs are recently contacted, Indigenous groups. Sometimes Indigenous communities living near the territories of IIPs have long-standing enmities and grudges that risk the emergence of war-like encounters. Much of the time, these are the results of splits within clans of the same group. As the recently contacted groups have better access to tools and weapons, any further encounter between these rival factions has proven lethal for the isolated groups.
Introduced diseases
The immune system of IIPs is often naïve against diseases seen in the outside population, such as influenza and measles. A common cause of reported deaths among IIPs is attributed to diseases introduced during contact with outsiders (Black, 1975; Culqui et al., 2016; Manock et al., 2000; Quizhpe et al., 2016). This phenomenon is not new; it is estimated that around 90% of the Indigenous population’s deaths during America’s colonization can be attributed to the colonizers’ infectious diseases (Koch et al., 2019). A recent example is the Andaman Jarawa or the Yanomami communities, which have seen disease measles outbreaks, resulting in deaths (Das et al., 2005; Kumar, 1999). The most recent coronavirus pandemic outbreak has put a lot of pressure within Indigenous groups in the Amazon basin, increasing the risk of a possible transmission to the isolated communities (Palamim et al., 2020; Ramírez et al., 2020).
Religious groups and missionaries
Religious missionaries began to establish their first contact with Indigenous peoples around 500 years ago. Some missionaries are still attempting to contact these groups up to this day. The purpose of missionary work is, broadly speaking, to convert people to a particular religious faith. This activity can bring a significant risk of disease to IIPs (Boster et al., 2003). The incident of John Chau, the American missionary killed by North Sentinelese tribesmen in November 2018 during an attempted contact, has brought to light the importance of effective policy concerning contact with IIPs.
Loggers, oil workers, and miners
IIPs inhabit some of the most biodiverse forests in the world (Montalvo, 2018; Walker et al., 2016). They can sustain their way of life precisely because their living areas are remote and inhabited by other populations. As we stated earlier, there is great interest from some states and private businesses to exploit their lands to gather resources.
Public policy toward IIPs is quite volatile in some regions of the world. A frightening example is the approach of the Bolosnaro Government from Brazil toward this subject. Traditionally, Brazil had one of the most institutionalized public offices in the world focused on Indigenous affairs, including the protection of IIP, The National Foundation for the Indigenous (Fundação Nacional do Índio). Mr Bolsonaro got elected as president of Brazil on a highly controversial agenda. He sustained on several occasions that the Indigenous groups and the NGOs that supported them were in the way of progress and promised to ease restrictions of access to previously protected land. After his appointment into office, the Brazilian president has taken several steps to ease access of the agribusiness industry into Indigenous lands and hampered the government agency’s ability in charge of managing Indigenous affairs.
Although not as histrionic, similar actions have been taken by the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Governments during the last years. Ecuador established a program to protect IIPs’ rights compelled by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2008. The effort included the participation of several governmental agencies and ministries and allowed creating an inviolable zone where the IIPs were thought to live. Five years later, the same administration allowed access of oil extraction companies to the Ishpingo, Tambococha y Tiputini block, which was once part of the same inviolable area.
Many areas inhabited by IIPs are being also invaded by illegal loggers; oil workers; and, in some areas, illegal miners, drug dealers, and hunters (Feather, 2015; Novotny, 2010; Vaz, 2019). There are reports of contact between oil and timber workers with IIPs in several parts of the world. In some cases, these contacts have caused first-contact diseases, including sexually transmitted diseases.
Tourist and visitors
The presence of isolated communities can attract tourists, researchers, reporters, and local authorities to their areas. Without clear protocols to avoid and manage contact, these uncontrolled visits to their territories might be contributing to spreading diseases to IIPs (Singh, 2018).
Proposed interventions
Several governmental organizations and NGOs are working to protect the lives and rights of IIPs. Common themes on how isolated communities can be protected include the following:
1. Limiting the advancement of modern society in areas where IIPs live.
Territorial delimitation is a crucial action to consider in these areas. Establishing urban and rural boundaries between cities and surrounding towns will help prevent the takeover of remote areas of land. The local legislation should establish the type of agricultural activities that could be developed within the buffer zones’ limits. In this context, in Perú or in Ecuador, the buffer zones have increased the chances to intervene in those areas, reducing, at least in part, the progression of modern society toward isolated groups (Moscoso, 2003).
2. Limiting access to these areas to people outside the surrounding communities.
The creation of buffering zones has had positive results in some countries. Limiting the number of people visiting those areas will reduce the pressure on the surrounding communities for water and other food sources.
3. Prohibiting mining, oil, gas, wood, and hunting exploitation.
The creation of inviolable zones where oil exploration, as well as mining or logging, is forbidden. For this to work in practice, it is necessary to establish control and surveillance zones within the borders of their limits. It might be necessary to scale down activities that are currently carried out in those territories. Restrictions on animal hunting can also help keep communities safe from outsider contact (Berraondo, 2007; CIDH, 2013; Montalvo, 2018; Rummenhoeller, 2007).
4. Promoting the creation of inter-institutional State–Community local committees.
It is essential to include surrounding Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in this process to ensure that they also have a way to fulfill their necessities. Creating these committees within the buffer zones must promote sustainable economic growth and development without interfering with the IIPs. Proposed roles for these committees can be to
(a) Create observation and monitoring centers of the activities and health status of IIPs without interfering with their activities.
(b) Perform surveillance and communication of unsustainable activities such as illegal mining or logging to state authorities, unwanted visitors, or environmental threats.
(c) Generate educational and health campaigns among residents of neighboring areas. The primary purpose would be to have a contingency plan in the event of initial contact with these communities.
(d) Promote sustainable development practices among surrounding communities of these areas, including ecological tourism and farming activities. Perhaps the most important thing is to create an environment in which the neighboring communities of the IIPs that, far from the fact that their presence is an obstacle to their development, it is a factor that leads to greater attention from the states and an increase in your opportunities.
5. Generating a social contingency plan in the eventual case of contact.
Creating social contingency plans is vital for the survival of these peoples in an eventual and hopefully peaceful contact. This contingency plan should have four fundamental pillars that are as follows:
(a) Health: People in recent contact are very vulnerable to contracting diseases once they have emerged from their isolation. Local authorities should have medical plans to identify new individuals and protect them from preventable diseases, such as a vaccine program.
(b) Social immersion: These peoples who historically have lacked formal education or any source of known trade cannot re-enter the consumer society in which we are currently living.
(c) Funding for economic support and maintenance: They will face several difficulties once they are in contact with a society they do not know.
(d) Education: An education program for eventual voluntary or involuntary contact with IIPs needs to be developed by experts in linguistics and anthropology. Their culture is a very precious asset. Thus, a plan to maintain it while receiving an education is a priority.
Discussion
The information provided in this document tries to stress the need to preserve this unique population’s right to life and self-determination. Some may misunderstand what the well-being of isolated Indigenous groups means. There are voices in the international community that suggest that contacting these groups will bring them to a new world with plenty of solutions to daily problems; nevertheless, several academic groups and NGOs argue against contact in terms of preserving the health, self-determination, and culture of the last humans living in isolation.
In this sense, it is impossible to have a clear opinion of the people who have come out of isolation and who currently live between modernity and the isolated way of living as they used to do for centuries.
Although there might be conflicting views on the matter, our criterion is that these human groups should decide how, when, and where to break their isolation and join the rest of society.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights considers that one of the fundamental premises regarding Indigenous peoples’ rights in voluntary isolation is the respect for non-contact and their choice to remain in isolation. The proposed strategy is based on the premise that “the principle of non-contact must be respected, which implies implementing a public policy that protects their vital spaces and preserves them” (CIDH, 2013).
The proposals presented in this commentary were often based on technical reports and gray literature that did not undergo peer-reviewing. There is a lack of scientifically published information about these groups.
On the contrary, it is essential to understand that there are very few documented examples of IIPs’ insertion into neighboring communities. Therefore, the information is scarce; however, we relied on the best technical information available from countries with more experience, such as Brazil or Peru (Amorim, 2016).
Peru is the only country with documented, reasonably comprehensive information about the ideal mechanisms to manage eventual contacts with isolated populations.
From a scientific point of view, most of these encounters have not been systematically documented. The only information available is anecdotal based on these experiences.
Some proposals have managed to have some legal implications, such as those in Peru and Brazil. In countries such as Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, and Paraguay, the laws are weaker and have not managed to translate into clear proposals that guarantee health, sovereignty, and a correct insertion into a world. The lack of legal provisions to protect these groups in the event of a desired contact and insertion risks putting them under threat of violence, discrimination, and abuse.
Finally, we believe that there is a discussion long due, that is essential to create proposals to protect these peoples that are sound and respond to the technical criteria of research teams and academics that have worked around these groups.
Although there is still pending information, starting with proposals for decision making is a fundamental start. Scientists and academics should have a fundamental role promoting the generation of fact-based public policy to protect these groups.
Conclusion
There is a need for clear regulations that allow the survival of these people who live in isolated communities. It takes persistent efforts to allow IIPs to maintain their chosen isolation in an era in which globalization’s advance is exponential. Respect for these choices to remain separated from the main society is respect for their human rights, especially their right to self-determination. Society must recognize that they are aware of our presence and nevertheless they choose not to contact us.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
