"Uncontacted" Tribes - What to Do?

[EecoErin]

Short article and good video http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080603-uncontacted-tribes.html

New photos of an "uncontacted" Amazonian tribe and aerial video of their camp have intensified the longstanding debate over how such tribes are labeled and what strategies to employ to protect them from developers.

Among the key questions: Should these people be contacted? And are they truly uncontacted in the first place?

The photos, released last week by the Indian affairs agency of the Brazilian government, or FUNAI, show several Amazon natives in loincloths firing arrows at a passing aircraft from near palm huts.

Note in particular the border issues, concerns about pathogens, and desires of oil companies.

So.... what's the ethical and moral thing to do here?

 

[Washington]

Short article and good video http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080603-uncontacted-tribes.html

Note in particular the border issues, concerns about pathogens, and desires of oil companies.

So.... what's the ethical and moral thing to do here?

Normally disease and exploitation come next.

 

[CCGirl]

Leave them alone, protect them from exploitation of the oil companies and the loggers.

 

[cantata]

Protecting them from disease is very important.

However, I don't like the idea that some people have that we should preserve groups of indigenous peoples for what seem to be aesthetic reasons. It's not our business to judge whether they are better off "unspoiled" by modernity or not.