Half of isolated Indigenous peoples face extinction: NGO

Bangla Press Desk:   Almost half of Indigenous communities living cut off from the world face extinction within the decade due to logging, mining and tourism, the NGO Survival International warned Monday.

"We really want the world and particularly governments and industries to recognise and address this as a global emergency," Survival International's executive director Caroline Pearce told a press conference in London, attended by US actor and long-time supporter of Indigenous peoples Richard Gere.

Some 196 peoples and groups, referred to as "uncontacted" due to their desire to live voluntarily isolated from other human societies, have been identified in 10 countries, according to the NGO's report.

More than 90 percent of them live in the Amazon rainforest, mainly in Brazil, but groups have also been recorded in Indonesia and India.

"The threats to almost half are so severe that they could be wiped out in the next 10 years," the report warned.

The Kakataibo community of Peru's Ucayali region faces one of the most uncertain futures.

Kakataibo community member Herlin Odicio does not live in isolation and instead campaigns on his people's behalf, notably against the illegal logging and cocoa cultivation that threaten them.

"In Peru, the government is erasing the laws" that protect Indigenous rights," he told the press conference, warning the community could be facing "extermination".

"We are not asking the government for a favour. This is an ancestral right," he said.

Indigenous rights, particularly land rights, are protected under international law, and although national legislation exists, "implementation is often weak", the NGO said.

In Indonesia, the growing exploitation of nickel to meet surging demand for electric vehicle batteries is endangering the nomadic hunter gatherer people of the Hongana Manyawa community, the report said.

"We in the industrialised world ... view (Indigenous peoples) as unfortunate collateral damage while we plunder their allowance for cars and houses and energy, jewellery, entertainment," said actor Gere, recalling his childhood next to a native American reservation in New York State.

In April, Indian authorities arrested a US tourist who was attempting to approach the Sentinelese community, who live on an island where no one is allowed to go, as a way to preserve the population and avoid introducing diseases.

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