Gillian Anderson: the world’s few remaining uncontacted tribes need our help to survive The last uncontacted tribes in the world are under threat from industrialisation of their homelands. The actress Gillian Anderson explains […]

The last uncontacted tribes in the world are under threat from industrialisation of their homelands. The actress Gillian Anderson explains how to protect them

A single image still has the power to get the whole world talking. In February 2011, we were captivated by the picture of a small cluster of Amazonian tribal people, possibly a family, looking up at an aircraft as it passed overhead.

They don’t look exactly as people might expect them to look. They’re not scared. Nor are they angry, or reacting with justifiable aggression by pointing arrows and spears, as other tribal people have been photographed doing in the recent past. Instead, they look quite serene – interested in the machine passing overhead, but not intimidated by it. They seem to be physically healthy and generally at ease with the world.

There are hundreds of tribes throughout Brazil, with varying degrees of contact with mainstream, industrialised society. The key difference with these people – and the factor that saw their photo splashed across front pages around the world – was that they were, and are, uncontacted. They have no peaceful interaction with mainstream society, and as far as we can tell, they do not want or need it.

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I was among the millions watching in awe in 2011. As a long-standing supporter of Survival International, a human rights organisation leading the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, I was aware of the existence of “uncontacted tribes” and had some idea of what that meant. But to have this sudden, striking, glimpse into their lives moved me very deeply.

Like thousands of others around the world, I asked myself a simple question: “What can I do to help these people survive?”

The challenges tribes face

A lot of people aren’t aware of just how severe the threats to uncontacted tribal peoples are. In the Americas in particular, indigenous people with no history of contact are extremely vulnerable to diseases such as flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

These illnesses are estimated to have wiped out as much as 90 per cent of the indigenous population of the continent after European invasions. Many people in the Amazon have not been exposed to them, and so could suffer the same fate from the smallest of brushes with the industrialised world. Handshakes, pieces of clothing, even a single cough could have catastrophic consequences.

Combine this with the frequent genocidal violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and the severity of the problem becomes clear.

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Only a few weeks ago, 13 contacted Gamela Indians were attacked and horrifically mutilated by a band of drunken, machete-armed ranchers looking to evict them from their ancestral land. Not very long ago, similar violence decimated the then-uncontacted Akuntsu people from further west in the Brazilian Amazon. After the death of their shaman Konibu in 2016 – the last male member of the tribe – four survivors know their eventual deaths will mean the completion of a genocide.

Sadly, colonialism is alive and well. There are still plenty of unscrupulous people who would be happy to see indigenous people wiped out forever, so that their forests can be cut down, their land turned into plantations and cattle ranches, and their society forcibly absorbed into the mainstream. Around the world, industrialised society is stealing tribal lands in the pursuit of profit.

What we must do

There is a simple solution to this problem. If we protect these peoples’ land and uphold their right to choose their own way of life, they can not only survive, but thrive.

Tribal territories are the best barrier against deforestation, as satellite images clearly show. And they also help save a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity: the languages, knowledge, and views of the world and our place within it of tribal peoples.

Survival International is dedicated full-time to this unique cause: securing land rights for tribal peoples so they have the chance to determine their own futures.

No one else is speaking up on the uncontacted issue. It deserves our undivided attention. In 2011, when the footage came out, I was proud to narrate a film putting the images into context and advocating for uncontacted peoples’ rights.

Now, with the issue as serious as ever before, and a strongly anti-indigenous government in Brazil threatening to bulldoze indigenous rights across the board, uncontacted tribes need our help more than ever before. That’s why I’ve partnered again with Survival, and with fellow actor and Survival ambassador Sir Mark Rylance, to make a short film bringing the issue to global attention.

We face a long and hard battle, but international pressure has made a decisive difference in the past in forcing governments and multinationals to respect tribal wishes and stay off indigenous land. We need the energy and enthusiasm of people like you to fulfil our uncompromising and radical vision of a world that is safe for uncontacted tribes. With enough support, I’m confident we can be victorious once again.

Visit Survival’s campaign site here