Instead of backing the UN’s landmark report, which supports the tribes’ right to be left alone, Peru is allowing the country’s largest gas project to expand further into indigenous territories known to house numerous uncontacted Indigenous peoples.

The new UN guidance makes clear that uncontacted tribes’ land should be untouchable, and that ‘no rights should be granted that involve the use of natural resources’.

The expansion plan adds to existing controversies around Argentine gas giant Pluspetrol and its notorious Camisea project in southeast Peru.

Past oil and gas exploration in Peru has resulted in violent and disastrous contact with isolated Indigenous peoples.

In the early 1980s, Shell workers opened up paths into the uncontacted Nahua’s land. Diseases soon wiped out half the tribe.

One surviving Nahua who lives close to Camisea’s developments said, ‘The company should not be here. All the time we hear helicopters. Our animals have left, there are no fish. For this, I don’t want the company. No! No company.’

Despite an electoral campaign that promised to respect indigenous rights, Peru’s President Ollanta Humala has done little to guarantee the survival of Indigenous peoples.

The Camisea consortium includes US-based Hunt Oil and Spain’s Repsol. Both have been accused of violating tribal peoples’ rights

Reportedly employed by powerful landowners in Mato Grosso do Sul state, the gunmen are creating a climate of fear to prevent Guarani Indians from returning to their ancestral land.

Guarani leader Nísio Gomes was murdered by gunmen. © Survival

The tactics employed in recent incidents have been almost identical. Gunmen encircle vehicles transporting Guarani, force them to stop, and then verbally abuse and interrogate passengers about the names on the hit list.

One Guarani leader told Survival, ’They’ve pinpointed us and they’re set to kill us. We’re at great risk. Here in Brazil, we have no justice. We have nowhere left to run.’

On Sunday, around 100 Guarani returning from a meeting in the district of Iguatemi were targeted. Guarani witnesses told Survival one of the four men involved was a local mayor.

The Guarani said the men shouted insults such as, ‘We’re going to burn these buses full of Indians!’ Members of a government team were also present at the scene.

Continued threats have also forced the son of an assassinated leader to flee his community. Ranchers killed Marcos Veron in 2003 after he repeatedly tried to recover a small piece of his community’s ancestral land – his son Ladio is now being targeted.

Marcos Veron was killed in 2003 during an attempt to return to his land. © Joaó Ripper/Survival

Gomes’ killers have yet to be arrested, but last week Brazil’s Public Ministry said six men had been charged with the murder of two Guarani teachers in 2009.

The accused include a notorious Brazilian rancher who held the teachers’ community hostage, and local politicians.

Ten people are believed to have died when Indonesian security forces broke up the rally of independence activists last month.

Watch footage of the attacks (©SBS TV/West Papua Media, WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT):

The video comes ahead of a visit to Bali by the US President and Secretary of State, for a regional summit. The US has applauded its ‘new partnership’ with Indonesia, but only last week Hillary Clinton criticized its human rights abuses.

The disturbing footage was smuggled out of West Papua exactly one year after scenes of Indonesian soldiers torturing Papuan men caused worldwide revulsion.

These latest clips allegedly show a local police commander giving the order to break up the rally on the outskirts of Jayapura – and the brutal and unprovoked violence that ensued.

Victim is found after Indonesia's violent crackdown on West Papuan Congress © Tapol/Down to Earth/West Papua Media

Indonesian security forces, many in plain clothes and wearing crash helmets, are seen randomly firing their weapons and arresting scores of people, many of whom are punched, kicked, beaten or forced to crawl along the ground.

Reverend Benny Giay from West Papua says violence has escalated since the Congress was dispersed. ‘I think maybe this is the Indonesian military and police’s response to the international pressure. The response is that they are being sent to Papua to kill, terrorize and abduct Papuans, but please do keep on the international pressure. Please tell people what is happening here for the sake of our future, our lives, our culture, our identity and our very existence.’

West Papua has been ruled by Indonesia since 1963, and more than 100,000 civilians are believed to have been killed during its occupation.

More clips are available for download from West Papua Media

Mark & Olly: Living with the Machigenga was shown on the Travel Channel in the US, and on the BBC last year. In the show Mark Anstice and Olly Steeds lived in a Matsigenka¹ village for several months to show the ‘reality’ of life among the tribe.

But now two experts on the tribe have gone public with a string of highly damaging accusations. Dr. Glenn Shepard is an anthropologist who has worked with the Matsigenka for 25 years and speaks their language fluently.² Ron Snell, the son of US missionaries, grew up with the tribe and and is also fluent in the Matsigenkas’ tongue.³

A Matsigenka hunter returns with wild pig. © G Shepard/ Survival

Just some of Shepard’s accusations, published in the highly-respected journal Anthropology News,⁴ are:

• In order to present a ‘false and insulting’ portrayal of the tribe as sex-obsessed, mean and savage, many of the translations of what the Indians are saying are fabricated.

• Many events presented as real in the show must have been ‘staged’.

• A key scene in the show in which Olly is subjected to painful ant stings, since “according to Matsigenka tradition he must be cleansed” and “endure the ancient punishments” for buying deer meat is denounced by Shepard as ‘fabricated and [with] no basis in ethnography.’

Ron Snell, in an article on his blog, accused the film-makers of ‘paying the Machiguengas to perform for them, saying things the Machiguengas wouldn’t ordinarily say and doing things the Machiguengas wouldn’t normally do.’

Matsigenka girls, Peru. © G Shepard/ Survival

After interviewing two of the Indians in the series, Snell reported, ‘Our suspicions were correct. They [Mark and Olly] entered the village on a well traveled path and only veered a few feet off the path to film themselves ‘hacking their way through the jungle.’ They contracted someone to make new cushmas [cotton tunics] so everyone would be wearing one. They staged the whole drama about one of the guys being accepted and the other treated as a lazy outsider…

‘The translator quickly became disillusioned with the whole thing, but kept going because of the money. He is ashamed and embarrassed that he had anything to do with it.’

The series was previously at the centre of a media storm when a scouting expedition for the show was accused in Peru of provoking a flu epidemic among isolated Indians which caused the deaths of four of them. The show was eventually filmed a short distance from this incident.

The Matsigenka were repeatedly mistranslated in the series. © Cicada

Cicada, the production company responsible for the series, has made no comment on the accusations.

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival, said, ‘Mark & Olly: Living with the Machigenga was a depressing example of the way tribal people are routinely portrayed on TV. One stereotype followed another, with the Matsigenka variously portrayed as callous, perverted, cruel, and savage. Is this what the film crew really thought of those whose guests they were? Broadcasters wouldn’t dare to make similarly false claims about other such minority groups: imagine the same descriptions applied to any ethnic minority in the industrialized world. Sadly this is all too common – TV is now getting away with portrayals which wouldn’t be out of place in the Victorian era.’

In response to a worrying trend to portray tribal peoples in a negative manner, Survival is drawing up a code of practice for documentary makers to follow when filming with them.

A background briefing with further examples of mistranslations and inaccuracies in the show is available to download here.

1. The tribe’s name is today usually spelt Matsigenka. Previously, Machiguenga was more common. Machigenga, as used in the Mark and Olly TV show, is incorrect.
2. Dr. Glenn Shepard is an ethnobotanist and medical anthropologist who specializes in the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. He has published more than 50 scientific papers and is currently a researcher in Indigenous Ethnology at the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi in Belém, Brazil.
3. Ron Snell grew up with the Matsigenka, where his parents were missionaries. He is the author of several books about his childhood there, and still visits the area regularly. He is now the director of a homeless people’s shelter in Nebraska, USA. His mother, who has also watched the series and corroborates the accusations, is the author of a 900-page Matsigenka dictionary.
4. A longer version of Dr. Shepard’s article can be found on his blog.

Leaders of the tribe, some of whose members are still uncontacted, have written to the UN Global Compact saying they are ‘concerned and frustrated’ by the inclusion in it of a controversial Brazilian ranching company.

The company, Yaguarete Porá, was charged and fined for illegally clearing the Ayoreo’s forests, and concealing evidence of uncontacted Ayoreo living there. The Ayoreo have asked that it be expelled from the Global Compact.

The UN Global Compact was designed for companies ‘committed to aligning their operations with ten universally accepted principles,’ including respect for human and environmental rights.

A bulldozer clears forest belonging to Ayoreo-Totobiegosode, Paraguay

In its reply, the Global Compact has admitted that it has ‘neither the resources nor the mandate to conduct investigations into any of our participants’.

Yaguarete Porá won Survival International’s ‘Greenwashing Award’ in 2010 for ‘dressing up the wholesale destruction of a huge area of the Indians’ forest as a noble gesture for conservation’.

While some Ayoreo have been contacted by missionaries, a number remain hidden in the forest. But their land is being quickly destroyed to make way for cattle farming.

Yaguarete has angered the Ayoreo by promoting its membership of the UN Global Compact on its website, which the Ayoreo believe promotes a false image of corporate responsibility.

The elections in Sarawak state will determine whether or not Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, already in power for 30 years, will stay in office.

Taib Mahmud’s government has sold the Penan’s land to logging companies, destroying much of the rainforest they rely on for their survival. But many Penan will have no say in whether Sarawak will keep him as leader or kick him out.

Identity cards are free to Malaysians who apply before the age of twelve, but most Penan apply as adults and face penalties. Corrupt officials and middlemen also routinely charge Penan people fees of up to US$100 when they apply. Many Penan have applied several times, making long, expensive journeys to the towns each time, before giving up.

One Penan man told Survival, ‘It’s very difficult for us to own an identity card. We don’t know why, but it’s not that we don’t apply. We have applied so many times, but we never see the identity card itself.’

The hunter-gatherer Penan are fighting to keep their last remaining rainforest safe from the logging companies. Penan have repeatedly told Survival that logging makes it difficult to feed their families, as the animals and plants they eat have been decimated.

Penan without identity cards are not recognized as Malaysian citizens, and are consequently charged much higher fees at public hospitals. Lack of documentation also makes any dealings with authority, including the police, very difficult.

Casement was sent by the British government to investigate crimes committed by British-registered rubber giant, the Peruvian Amazon Company. He found, ‘The crimes charged against many men now in the employ of the Peruvian Amazon Company are of the most atrocious kind, including murder, violation, and constant flogging’.

Thousands of Indians were enslaved and killed during the rubber boom. © W Hardenburg

Agents of the company rounded up dozens of Indian tribes in the western Amazon to collect wild rubber for the European and American markets. In a few short decades many of the tribes were completely wiped out.

Much of the detail of this horrific episode has been forgotten, but for the descendants of the rubber boom survivors, the reality of the continuing ‘rainforest harvest’ is impossible to ignore.

The uncontacted Indians seen in stunning new footage last month are likely to be descended from rubber boom survivors, whilst nearby another ‘rainforest harvest’ is being played out on uncontacted tribes’ land. Illegal loggers, driven by the high value of endangered woods, are pushing further into their remote forest homes.

US conservation organization, Upper Amazon Conservancy, documented illegal logging camps in areas inhabited by uncontacted Murunahua Indians just six months ago. Yet, according to a statement by Peru’s environment minister last week, the government has logging under almost 100% control. ‘Each mahogany tree that is chopped down today is georeferenced and controlled’.

UAC spokesman Chris Fagan told Survival International, ‘The minister’s statement is 100% incorrect. The majority of mahogany continues to be cut from Peru’s protected areas or from indigenous lands illegally, without adhering to proper management plans.’

New photos obtained by Survival International show uncontacted Indigenous people in never-seen-before detail. The Indigenous people are living in Brazil, near the Peruvian border, and are featured in the ‘Jungles’ episode of BBC1’s Human Planet.

The pictures were taken by Brazil’s Indian Affairs Department, which has authorized Survival to use them as part of its campaign to protect their territory. They reveal a thriving, healthy community with baskets full of manioc and papaya fresh from their gardens.

The tribe’s survival is in serious jeopardy as an influx of illegal loggers invades the Peru side of the border. Brazilian authorities believe the influx of loggers is pushing isolated Indians from Peru into Brazil, and the two groups are likely to come into conflict.

Peru’s authorities have announced that they will work together with Brazil to stop loggers entering isolated Indigenous people’s territory along the two countries’ joint border.

This uncontacted tribe is likely to be descended from Indigenous people who escaped the atrocities of the rubber boom last century. For several decades they will have known about and have had access to metal goods, such as the knife and pan in the photo, acquired through inter-tribal trading networks.

Boa Sr was the last member of the Bo tribe. © Alok Das

Boa Sr, the last of the Bo, died last January aged around 85. The Jarawa tribe number 365 people, and fiercely resisted contact with outsiders until 1998.

Now an illegal road cuts through the Jarawa’s rainforest, and poachers and tourists invade their land. Poachers steal the animals the Jarawa need to survive and, like the tourists, risk introducing diseases to which the tribe have no immunity. Survival is urging the Indian government to close the road and to keep outsiders out of the tribe’s forest.

Map showing the remote location of the Andaman Islands. Map from traveltwins.dk

The MP for the Andaman Islands, who wants to keep the road open, called last month for India to ‘civilize’ the Jarawa.

The Bo, the Jarawa and other tribes are thought to have lived on the Andaman Islands for about 55,000 years, making them the descendants of some of the oldest human cultures on Earth.

The Bo were one of ten tribes now collectively known as the Great Andamanese. Most of the Great Andamanese were killed or died of diseases brought by the British, who colonized the islands in 1858. The British tried to ‘civilize’ them by capturing them and keeping them in an ‘Andaman Home’, where many died.

Reverend Benny Giay, an outspoken defender of human rights in West Papua, has found himself on a list of ‘enemies’, which appears to have been leaked by Indonesia’s Kopassus forces. US assistance to Kopassus was renewed in July this year.

Kopassus is notorious for human rights violations in West Papua and East Timor. Rev. Giay told Survival International that by renewing ties with Kopassus, ‘The US is supporting the policy to oppress the Papuans, to wipe us out.’

The leaked documents show Indonesia’s special forces to be targeting church leaders and unarmed civilian activists in Papua, defining them as Kopassus’s main ‘enemy’. The Indonesian military has not denied the veracity of the documents.

A secret report from the task force says the civilians are ‘much more dangerous’ than the armed opposition. For example, it states that the civilians persist in ‘propagating the issue of severe human rights violations in Papua’ i.e. ‘murders and abductions that are done by the security forces’.

Another Papuan churchman, Rev. Socratez Yoman, heads the list of Kopassus ‘enemies’. He told Survival, ‘I speak up for justice, peace, human rights and dignity. I must speak up for my people.’ He shrugged off the death threats and intimidation that he and many others on the list suffer, by saying, ‘This is our daily life.’

The revelations from Kopassus come only weeks after a shocking video was released of Indonesian soldiers torturing two tribal Papuan men.

Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry said, ‘It is shameful that the US has renewed its ties with Kopassus when they continue to target churchmen and civilians merely for speaking out about the suffering of their people.’

More than a hundred illegal fishermen from Burma have been arrested in recent weeks. Fourteen were fishing off North Sentinel Island, home to the Sentinelese tribe, who attack anyone approaching their island. Members of the tribe killed two fishermen in 2006.

Burmese and local Indian poachers also threaten the survival of the Jarawa tribe, who have only had contact with outsiders since 1998. An Indian poacher and a Jarawa man died in a conflict in the Jarawa’s reserve in 2008.

The Indian coast guard has announced a series of arrests of more than a hundred Burmese poachers since late August, mostly in the vicinity of the Jarawa’s reserve. However, local Indian poachers are rarely targeted.

Poachers catch turtles and dive for lucrative sea cucumber for the Chinese market, and also hunt in the Jarawa’s forest. Local poachers often enter by the illegal road that cuts through the tribe’s land. Survival has repeatedly urged the local authorities to close the road, but it remains open.

Local sources say the scale of the problem is much greater than the recent arrests suggest, with most poachers going undetected.

Both the Jarawa and the Sentinelese are hunter-gatherers, and theft of the fish and animals in their territory endangers their food supply. Poachers also risk introducing common diseases to the tribes. The Sentinelese are especially at risk: their complete isolation means they are likely to have no immunity to diseases such as flu and measles.¹

1. The Sentinelese are believed to be the world’s most isolated tribe, and have no contact with outsiders.

   The neighbouring Bo tribe on the Andaman Islands became extinct in January this year with the death of its last surviving member, Boa Sr.

The appeal comes as world experts arrive in Stockholm for World Water Week, and ahead of the Right Livelihood Award conference in Bonn, 14-19th September. It follows the UN’s adoption of water as a human right in July.

Describing the government’s actions as ‘inexcusable’, the laureates’ letter urges it to ‘allow the Bushmen access to water on their lands, and work with them to ensure a sustainable future for everyone’.

The laureates express concern for the welfare of the Bushmen of Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve, who have been banned from accessing a well which they rely on for water. ‘Without access to water, a fundamental human right’, the letter says, ‘they are struggling to sustain their way of live on their ancestral lands’.

In 2002, the Bushmen were evicted from their lands by the Botswana government and dumped in resettlement camps outside the reserve. With Survival’s help they took the government to court, and four years later won a landmark High Court ruling declaring their right to live in the reserve. In 2005, the Bushmen’s organization, First People of the Kalahari, was awarded an ‘alternative Nobel Prize’ for their struggle for their rights.

Despite the ruling, the government refuses to allow the Bushmen to recommission a well, which it sealed and capped during the 2002 evictions, forcing the Bushmen to make arduous journeys to fetch water from outside the reserve. At the same time, it has drilled new well for wildlife and allowed Wilderness Safaris to build a luxury tourist lodge with swimming pool on Bushman land. In the near future it is also likely to issue a licence for a diamond mine on Bushman land, for which new wells will be drilled, on condition that the mine will not provide water to the Bushmen.

In July, a High Court judge dismissed the Bushmen’s application for permission to use the well, expressing sympathy for the government’s argument that the Bushmen have ‘brought upon themselves any discomfort they may endure’.

Bushman spokesperson, Jumanda Gakelebone, said, ‘We are grateful to all the laureates for helping us. Khama should know that a lot of human rights activists all over the world are watching’.

The letter reads:

Dear President Khama,

We, the undersigned, all winners of the ‘alternative Nobel prize’, are greatly concerned for the welfare of our friends and fellow laureates, the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Without access to water, a fundamental human right, they are struggling to sustain their way of life on their ancestral lands.
All the Bushmen want is to be able to use a well which they used before they were illegally evicted from their lands. To deny them this is inexcusable.
We urge you to allow the Bushmen access to water on their lands, and work with them to ensure a sustainable future for everyone. In the words of Roy Sesana, ‘We aren’t here for ourselves. We are here for each other and for the children of our grandchildren’.

Yours sincerely,

Ibrahim Abouleish (Egypt)
Marcos Aran, International Baby Food Action Network (Mexico)
András Biró/Hungarian Foundation for Self-Reliance (Hungary)
Carmel Budiardjo (UK)
Tony Clarke (Canada)
Erik Dammann/The Future in Our Hands (Norway)
Hans-Peter Duerr (Germany)
Samuel Epstein (USA)

Anwar Fazal (Malaysia)
Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín (Colombia)
Johan Galtung (Norway)
Wes Jackson/The Land Institute (USA)
Katarina Kruhonja (Croatia)
Ida Kuklina/The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia (Russia)
Manfred Max-Neef (Chile)
Pat Mooney (Canada)

Alice Tepper Marlin (USA)
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Nigeria)
Nicanor Perlas (Philippines)
Raúl Montenegro (Argentina)
Juan Pablo Orrego/ Grupo de Acción por el Biobío (Chile)
Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (India)
Right Livelihood Award Foundation (Sweden)
Mycle Schneider (France)

Suciwati, wife of late Munir (Indonesia)
Hannumappa Sudarshan, VGKK (India)
Vesna Terselic (Croatia)
Trident Ploughshares (UK)
John F. Charlewood Turner (UK)
Judit Vásárhelyi, on behalf of Duna Kör (Hungary)
Alla Yaroshinskaya (Russia)

Download the full letter.

They follow allegations by other Penan women in 2008, which the Malaysian government denied but was later forced to confirm.

The Penan's forests have been devastated by loggers. © Andy and Nick Rain/Survival

The Sarawak state government has licensed the Penan’s land to logging and plantation companies that have devastated the rainforests the tribe rely on.

The Malaysian Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development has refuted the new allegations. The Chief Minister of Sarawak also denied the previous allegations of rape, saying they were ‘lies’ and an attempt at ‘sabotage’. A government investigation later confirmed that the women’s claims were true.

Officials have continued to dismiss the issue. When the BBC confronted Sarawak’s Minister for Land Development with the statement of a teenage Penan rape victim, he said, ‘They change their stories, and when they feel like it. That’s why I say the Penan are very good storytellers.’

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is due to visit some Penan villages on July 22.

The report says the logging ‘provides evidence that Peru is failing to uphold the environmental and forestry obligations of its 2009

Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US’ because ‘more than 80% of Peru’s mahogany (is) exported to the United States’. UAC’s report has been released just a month after the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled to Peru to meet President Alan Garcia and claimed, ‘The United States and Peru are working together to protect the environment.’

The report also reveals how loggers trick Peruvian and US authorities into believing the mahogany has been legally sourced. The logging ‘will continue until the US government unilaterally rejects questionable Peruvian mahogany,’ it says.

Illegal logging settlement inside the Murunahua Reserve for uncontacted tribes, south-east Peru. © Chris Fagan/Upper Amazon Conservancy

UAC’s report includes photos of a logging camp and cut mahogany in the Murunahua Reserve, which is supposedly set aside for uncontacted Indians’ sole use, in south-east Peru. It says that logging is ‘widespread’ in the reserve, and that a ‘vast network of logging roads’ used by ‘over a dozen tractors’ connects the reserve to a major Amazonian tributary.

The uncontacted tribes in the reserve ‘lack natural defenses against diseases brought from outsiders and are threatened by any type of contact,’ says the report. It also says the logging violates the ‘Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’ (CITES), which aims to protect mahogany.

The Murunahua Reserve was recently made off-limits to oil and gas companies because of the threat exploration would pose to the uncontacted Indians living there.

When the government evicted the Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in 2002, it capped the borehole, the only source of water for the Bushman communities in the Reserve.

In 2006 Botswana’s High Court ruled that the government had acted unconstitutionally when it evicted the Bushmen and said they had the right to return to the Reserve. Hundreds of Bushmen have since gone back home.

Despite the Bushmen’s repeated attempts to negotiate with the government, it still refuses to let them use the water borehole.

The Bushmen, who live in one of the world’s driest regions, are forced to make an arduous 300 mile round trip to obtain water outside the reserve. Since the borehole was capped one Bushman has died of dehydration.

In desperation the Bushmen are going to court to assert their basic human right to water.

The UN’s top official on indigenous rights, Professor James Anaya, has also condemned the government for its treatment of the Bushmen, stating that it falls short of the ‘relevant international human rights standards’. He found that Bushmen in the reserve ‘face harsh and dangerous conditions due to a lack of access to water’, and called on the government to reactivate the borehole ‘as a matter of urgent priority’.

Jumanda Gakelebone, a Bushman from the CKGR, said today ‘The High Court said we have the right to live on the land of our ancestors. Surely that includes the right to drink our water. Many Bushmen, especially the old people and the young are suffering from lack of water. It pains us that the animals and tourists on our land can drink our water to their heart’s content yet we go thirsty. We pray that the court will give us back our water.’

The pipeline is being built to transport an estimated three hundred million barrels of oil from the depths of the northern Peruvian Amazon. The company makes no mention of the tribes in its report detailing the potential social and environmental impacts of the pipeline, despite the fact they could be decimated by contact with Perenco’s workers.

‘Failing to mention that they’re working on the land of isolated tribal people is just like what the British did in Australia: make the tribal people invisible so they can claim the land for themselves,’ said Survival director Stephen Corry.

Uncontacted Indians have left crossed spears across paths in northern Peru to warn outsiders to stay out. © Marek Wolodzko/Survival

Perenco’s report was recently made public on the Peruvian Energy Ministry’s website. It fails to mention that the pipeline would cut right into the heart of a proposed reserve for the uncontacted Indians.

The Ministry has responded by failing to approve Perenco’s report. It has asked the company to write an ‘anthropological contingency plan’, given the ‘possible existence’ of uncontacted tribes in the region.

The pipeline is projected to be 207 kms long and to connect with another pipeline already built, which will transport the oil all the way to Peru’s Pacific coast. Perenco’s report says it would affect the forest for five hundreds metres on either side.

High-ranking officials in Peru hope the pipeline will help transform Peru’s economy. Survival and many other organizations are lobbying Peru’s government not to build it.

Perenco’s report says that production is expected in 2013. The company, chaired by Oxford University graduate Francois Perrodo, has denied the existence of uncontacted Indians in the region, even though the previous company working in the region admitted contact with them was ‘probable.’

At the same time as forcing the Bushmen to make 300 mile round trips to fetch water, the government has allowed the opening of a safari lodge in the reserve, complete with a swimming pool for tourists, and has drilled new boreholes for wildlife only. 

The government’s treatment of the Bushmen was recently condemned by the UN Special Rapporteur for indigenous peoples, who accused it of falling short of ‘the relevant international human rights standards’. He also found that those Bushmen who have returned to the reserve ‘face harsh and dangerous conditions due to a lack of access to water’ and urged the government to reactivate the Bushmen’s borehole ‘as a matter of urgent priority’. 

Since the ruling, many Bushmen have returned to their ancestral lands inside the reserve. However, without access to their borehole, they face severe water shortages; at least one woman has died from dehydration since the borehole was cut off. Many more languish in the resettlement camps where they were dumped by the government, anxious about returning to their lands without access to a regular supply of water. 

Over 2,000 days since their water supply was cut off, the Bushmen have now launched legal proceedings against the government in a bid to gain access to their borehole.

President Khama, accompanied by four government ministers, met with Bushmen at the New Xade resettlement camp where they were dumped after being evicted from their lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002. Despite a three year-old High Court ruling that they have the right to live in the reserve, many still languish in the camps.

Since the ruling, the government has banned the Bushmen from accessing a water borehole on their lands; without it, they struggle to find enough water. Since attempts to negotiate with the government failed, the Bushmen have launched legal proceedings to gain access to their borehole.

However, President Khama ignored the new litigation, choosing instead to talk about upgrades to the New Xade site. When Roy Sesana, founder of the Bushmen’s organization, First People of the Kalahari, asked a question about the failed negotiations, he was told by the minister for wildlife and national parks that the President ‘doesn’t have to listen to this’.

Bushman spokesman, Jumanda Gakelebone, said, ‘The hope from us was that the president would address the problem of water and give us some answers which would show there is a relationship between us and him. But he was not interested in talking with us. We were not given the chance to speak.’

At the same time as denying Bushmen their right to water, President Khama, who is on the board of Conservation International, has drilled new boreholes for wildlife in the reserve, funded by Tiffany & Co, and has given the go ahead for a safari lodge, now open, complete with swimming pool.

‘Khama’s ‘policy’ is illegal and in violation of the Bushmen’s fundamental human rights. In spite of the continuing damage to the country’s reputation, this government seems determined to destroy the Bushmen. Tourists in the game reserve, where water is provided to the animals but denied to the indigenous peoples, will be trampling over the Bushmen’s graves.’

Boa Sr, who died last week aged around 85, was the last speaker of ‘Bo’, one of the ten Great Andamanese languages. The Bo are thought to have lived in the Andaman Islands for as much as 65,000 years, making them the descendants of one of the oldest human cultures on Earth.¹

Boa Sr was the oldest of the Great Andamanese, who now number just 52. Originally ten distinct tribes, the Great Andamanese were 5,000 strong when the British colonized the Andaman Islands in 1858. Most were killed or died of diseases brought by the colonizers.

Having failed to ‘pacify’ the tribes through violence, the British tried to ‘civilize’ them by capturing many and keeping them in an ‘Andaman Home’. Of the 150 children born in the home, none lived beyond the age of two.

The surviving Great Andamanese depend largely on the Indian government for food and shelter, and abuse of alcohol is rife.

Boa Sr survived the Asian tsunami of December 2004, and told linguists, ‘We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us ‘the Earth would part, don’t run away or move’. The elders told us, that’s how we know.’

Linguist Prof. Anvita Abbi, who knew Boa Sr for many years, said, ‘Since she was the only speaker of [Bo] she was very lonely as she had no one to converse with… Boa Sr. had a very good sense of humour and her smile and full throated laughter were infectious.’

‘You cannot imagine the pain and anguish that I spend each day in being a mute witness to the loss of a remarkable culture and unique language.’

Boa Sr told Abbi she felt the neighbouring Jarawa tribe, who have not been decimated, were lucky to live in their forest away from the settlers who now occupy much of the Islands.

Survival International’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘The Great Andamanese were first massacred, then all but wiped out by paternalistic policies which left them ravaged by epidemics of disease, and robbed of their land and independence.

‘With the death of Boa Sr and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory. Boa’s loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands.’

1. Listen to Boa Sr singing in Bo.

The mining company has falsely accused Survival of ‘forcedly interacting’ with the Dongria Kondh tribe who live around the area earmarked for mining, and of causing ‘unrest.’ Vedanta has prompted a police investigation into Survival, with officers making a late night visit to a hotel where they believed Survival researchers were staying.

There have been repeated protests against Vedanta's planned mine. © Satyabady Naik

Survival researchers were in the Niyamgiri area of Orissa, east India, to talk with members of the Dongria Kondh community whose future is threatened by a proposed Vedanta mine on their sacred mountain.

Pavan Kaushik, Vedanta Group’s head of corporate communications, wrote to journalists alleging that ‘foreign NGOs including Survival International… are provoking innocent tribal’s to defame the government and the company’. In the letter, he attacked ‘foreigners’ for ‘freely moving in the region’ and alleged that they were circulating ‘false information’. The letter also invites journalists to contact the regional Superintendent of Police, who is named as available for interview.

In September the British government ruled that Vedanta had repeatedly failed to respect the human rights of the Dongria Kondh, demanding a change in the company’s behaviour. The government asked Survival to report back on what steps Vedanta had taken to implement these ‘essential’ changes before the end of the year.

Gordon Bennett, a London barrister who represented the Kalahari Bushmen in their historic win over the Botswana government, has been acting on behalf of the Dongria Kondh in their complaint over Vedanta’s behaviour, and accompanied the Survival researchers.

He said today, ‘We have not circulated any false information about Vedanta’s mining activities. All the information we have given the Dongria has been culled from Vedanta’s own mining plan, which it has never troubled to discuss with the Dongria itself. We have not ‘forcedly interacted’ with the Dongrias: on the contrary we have been warmly welcomed by all those we have been able to meet.

‘We have not provoked ‘innocent tribals’ to defame either the government or Vedanta. It is true to say however that feelings run high in Niyamgiri and that many Dongria regard Vedanta with suspicion and distrust. They believe that their way of life is under serious threat.

‘We have done nothing to create ‘misunderstanding’. It is Vedanta which has done this, both by its refusal to meet with us, and more importantly by its repeated failure either to consult the Dongria about its plans for their sacred hills, or to pay any regard to their views.’

He added, ‘If Vedanta has nothing to hide, it is difficult to understand why it has gone out of its way to obstruct our inquiries. Their press release is entirely without foundation.’