Indigenous rights groups have warned they are rapidly running out of time to save one of the world’s most vulnerable Amazonian tribes before far-Right Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro is sworn into office on 1 January.

Human rights organisation Survival International is lobbying the Brazilian government to map out and protect the land of the uncontacted Kawahiva tribe.

The Kawahiva are hunter-gatherers based in the territory of Rio Pardo, in Brazil’s southern Amazonian region. The Brazilian indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, estimates that there are over 100 such isolated tribes across the country.

Survival also demands increased policing in and around the tribal territory, to avoid what the organisation calls the “genocide” of the Kawahiva.

Their land is under sustained threat from illegal loggers, with the tribespeople routinely forced to move camps due to attacks from outsiders.

The state surrounding Rio Pardo is one of the country’s most violent, with land conflicts resulting in 71 reported murders last year alone.

“The Kawahiva’s land is being usurped", Andrea Prado, president of the Indigenists Association (INA), told The Daily Telegraph.

“They are constantly under attack. As they have no direct contact with Brazilian society, it is extremely difficult for them to defend themselves."

INA is a non-profit organisation comprising public servants of FUNAI. Survival is lobbying for Rio Pardo to be demarcated and protected, a process which has stalled since current president Michel Temer took office in August 2016.