Brazil’s indigenous agency FUNAI registers 115 uncontacted indigenous peoples across the country, but the government only confirms the existence of 29, as 86 – 75 percent of them – are still under analysis.
“There’s a huge backlog in the process of recognizing the existence of these isolated peoples. Their records are in the FUNAI database, but they haven’t been confirmed by the state. This is serious,” says anthropologist and executive coordinator of the Observatory of Isolated Indigenous Peoples (OPI), Fábio Ribeiro.
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A survey by the NGO Survival International points out that there are 196 uncontacted indigenous peoples around the globe. Brazil stands at the top of the ranking, with 115 of these groups. In Fábio Ribeiro’s view, however, the gap between records and confirmations increases the vulnerability faced by the indigenous peoples.
“We know that the policy of protecting these territories is effective to the extent that FUNAI is able to generate sufficient evidence to say ‘there is an isolated indigenous people there, we need to protect that territory,’” explains Fábio Ribeiro, who was a FUNAI official before coordinating the observatory.
Among the protection policies, he cites the construction of surveillance posts in strategic locations, flyovers, institutional coordination efforts, and the presence of FUNAI itself, in addition to the Secretariat for Indigenous Health, SESAI.
The general coordinator of Isolated and Recently Contacted Peoples at FUNAI’s Territorial Protection Directorate, Marco Aurélio Milken Tosta, acknowledges the discrepancy. “There is indeed a deficit on the part of the Brazilian state with regard to these records. There are records that need to be worked on, and institutional limitations prevent us from working with all of them,” he argued.
Vale do Javari
In Brazil, the Vale do Javari – where expert in indigenous peoples Bruno Pereira worked before being murdered alongside UK journalist Dom Philips in 2022 – is home to most of the country’s uncontacted indigenous peoples, in addition to those living along the borders with Peru and the Guianas.
Fábio Ribeiro, however, warns that “these are not the most vulnerable isolated peoples, because they still live in continuous areas of monumental forests.”
“The most vulnerable are the peoples living in the Arc of Deforestation, because these territories have been completely fragmented, and they live on pockets of forest. These people live surrounded by roads, developments, mining, cities, highways, farms, and forest concession projects, so it’s a really challenging situation,” he points out.
In the view of FUNAI Director Aurélio Milken, “the pressure on territories occupied by isolated [peoples] will increase exponentially, given climate change and the advance of exploration fronts, as the location where these peoples live represents the last remaining strongholds of natural resources.”
Milken is not exaggerating. A survey by the news program Repórter Brasil, produced by EBC, shows that, of the 55 records of isolated peoples already confirmed or under study, 80 percent are surrounded by areas under review for rare earth and critical mineral mining.
“[FUNAI] needs to be strengthened and prepared to face these increasing challenges,” he argues.
In Brazil, the Vale do Javari is home to most of the country’s uncontacted indigenous peoples. – Ticiane Ribeiro / OPI
Isolated peoples
Isolated peoples are groups that are aware of the existence of other peoples, indigenous or non-indigenous, and choose to remain isolated, usually due to experiences of extreme violence.
“They do not accept a permanent relationship with the Brazilian state – for various reasons, but mainly because they are survivors of massacres, raids, and slaughter. In other words, isolation is strictly linked to the idea of genocide,” Fábio Ribeiro says.
As a result, confirming the existence of isolated peoples is a complex process. It usually consists of a collection of evidence such as the presence of huts, vegetable gardens, tools, footprints on trails, sightings, and, when researchers are lucky, recorded images.
“There is a huge asymmetry in the burden of proof between demarcating [indigenous] land and clearing that land for development. For the former, FUNAI is required to take a photo alongside isolated indigenous individuals to prove [that they exist]. For the latter, all it takes is a statement affirming there are no isolated indigenous peoples in a given location for that land to be cleared for development,” Fábio Ribeiro notes.
“There is a question of experience and training, which requires the ability to read the traces of isolated indigenous peoples and also the physical conditions for land travel – and that’s exhausting,” says Aurélio Milken, explaining why the biggest challenge in working with isolated peoples is not only budgetary constraints, but also the training of qualified professionals.
“We are talking about expeditions, monitoring efforts, land travel, spending days in the jungle without access to any kind of comfort, and facing a wide range of logistical difficulties and the dangers inherent in this type of activity in the forest,” he adds.
Today, FUNAI has 12 field teams working on ethno-environmental protection. But according to Aurélio Milken, not all professionals are able to carry out activities with uncontacted peoples.
FUNAI, he notes, is currently in the process of hiring 1 thousand temporary employees. Most of the contracts should be for indigenous employees. In 2024, 502 positions were offered at FUNAI for secondary and higher education levels.
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