Reuters AlertNet – Little known Indian tribe spotted in Brazil.

Little known Indian tribe spotted in Brazil 25 May 2005 17:18:41 GMT Source: Reuters By Terry Wade PORTO VELHO, Brazil, May 25 (Reuters) – A Brazilian Indian tribe armed with bows and arrows and unseen for years has been spotted in a remote Amazon region where clashes with illegal loggers are threatening its existence. The tiny Jururei tribe numbers only 8 or 10, and is the second "uncontacted" group to be threatened by loggers this month, after a judge approved cutting in an area of the jungle called Rio Pardo.

Accelerating rainforest destruction threatens the tribes. Deforestation in 2003-04 totaled 10,088 square miles (26,130 sq km), the most in nearly a decade, official figures show. "The Indians have had conflict with loggers, who are cutting toward them from two different directions," Rogerio Vargas Motta, director of the Pacaas Novos national park, told Reuters. He photographed Jururei huts on a recent helicopter flyover of the remote park to catch land grabbers. One Jururei shot three arrows at the helicopter as it flew overhead, Vargas Motta said. The tribe’s wood huts have roofs of black plastic tarps found in abandoned logging camps. Indian rights activists are alarmed. "Unless Brazil acts now to protect uncontacted tribes, they will disappear off the face of the earth forever. The annihilation of a tribe, however small, is genocide," said Fiona Watson, Campaigns Coordinator of Survival International in London.

They blame a lack of political will and a powerful lobby of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers for fueling deforestation and threatening Brazil’s 700,000 Indians.

"There’s been a grave lack of funding for conservation on the part of the government," said Samuel Vieira Cruz, director of Kaninde, a nonprofit group that works to protect two Indian tribes in the area.