Yesterday was the launch of a book that I have been waiting eight years for. You see, back in 2003 I read a National Geographic article that was unlike anything I had ever read before. It dealt with an expedition, deep into the farthest reaches of the Amazon, to look for but explicitly not contact an indigenous tribe. The notion of leaving them “uncontacted” turned the violent 500-year history of our continent on its head.
Now that same expedition is detailed in a new book by author Scott Wallace. A number of media outlets have recently published articles about Scott and the book, like this profile in Salon.com. We hope you’ll review these materials, order the book, and check out Scott on his upcoming speaking tour.
Uncontacted groups pose a powerful counter-point to the notion that civilization and modernity are the best path for all people. We have over five centuries of evidence about what contact implies for any indigenous group: an initial decimation of population through violence and disease, a direct attack on their cultural, spiritual and linguistic norms, and often enduring impoverishment. What would our reaction be to the invasion of aliens if we knew this would be our collective fate? If Hollywood is any indication (e.g., Battle: LA, in which the aliens are in search of natural resources to plunder), we certainly wouldn’t embrace it. Uncontacted groups are the personification of the “fight or flight” reaction of humans to traumatic circumstances.
Though Scott’s expedition was in 2002, the issue is increasingly relevant today. As roads and natural resource extraction projects – both illegal and state-sanctioned – push deeper into the rainforests, they pose a mortal threat to the uncontacted groups in question. Think of these people as the guardians of some of the last pristine and bio-diverse natural areas in the world.
The protection of uncontacted tribes – and of the globe’s most remote regions in which they live – is of fundamental importance to the rest of us. As go uncontacted indigenous peoples, so goes the Amazon; and that has global implications for the future of humanity.
