Overview
- Survival International’s Oct. 27 analysis identifies at least 196 uncontacted groups in 10 countries and says many could be wiped out within 10 years without action.
- Roughly 95% of these communities live in the Amazon Basin, with Brazil accounting for 124 of the groups.
- The report finds 96% face threats tied to extraction, including logging affecting nearly 65%, mining around 40% and agribusiness about 20%, with 38 groups pressured by new roads and railways.
- Missionaries, criminal networks and social media influencers are driving new contact attempts that heighten infection risks, highlighted by India’s arrest of an American YouTuber at North Sentinel Island in April.
- Protections remain uneven as Peru rejected the Yavarí Mirim reserve proposal, while advocates call for legally enforced no-contact zones, territorial recognition, corporate supply-chain tracing and prosecutions for crimes against Indigenous groups.