Scientists must let world's most isolated tribes make own decisions

Initiating "controlled contact" with indigenous peoples in the Amazon would violate their rights and threaten their lives

Usually the indigenous peoples living in the remotest Amazon only draw international media attention if certain kinds of photos or film footage emerge, as in mid-2014, or they raid a village or, tragically, kill someone, as happened on 1 May. Many media reports misinform as much as inform: factual errors, no context and all kinds of sensationalism. "Lost tribe!" "First contact!"

This time it's a series of articles in the US journal Science - and in particular the editorial by two US anthropologists - that has sparked interest. The gist of the editorial is that governments, above all Brazil's and Peru's, should u-turn on their "leave them alone strategies" and initiate "controlled contact" with "isolated indigenous societies across lowland South America" - sometimes erroneously called "uncontacted" - who have "limited to no contact with the outside world." They must do this, argue Kim Hill, from Arizona State University, and Robert Walker, from the University of Missouri, "only after conceiving a well-organized plan" requiring a "qualified team of cultural translators and health care professionals that is committed to staying on site for more than a year."