Protecting the PIACI
Supporting the protection of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI) and those who risk their lives defending them.
Deep within the Amazon rainforest live some of the world's most vulnerable communities: Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI). These are nations, families, and clans who have chosen to remain isolated from mainstream society, often after centuries of violence, enslavement, disease, land theft, and invasion.
Their decision to avoid contact is not a relic of the past. It is an active choice for survival.
The Amazon is home to the largest concentration of isolated Indigenous peoples on Earth. From Brazil and Peru to Colombia and Ecuador, these communities depend entirely on intact forests, healthy rivers, and secure territories. Their cultures, languages, knowledge systems, and ways of life have been preserved through generations of careful stewardship of the rainforest.
Yet today their survival is under unprecedented threat.
'Living deep in the rainforests of south-east Peru, the Mashco Piro are believed to be the largest uncontacted tribe on Earth, numbering more than 750 people. In mid-2024, Survival shared photographs and video of a large number of Mashco Piro people emerging onto a riverbank in their territory, which is under massive pressure from logging. Having survived a traumatic history of massacres and enslavement, they’ve made their determination to defend their territory very clear.' Text: Survival International (https://survivalinternational.org/peoples/Mashco-Piro)
Illegal logging, gold mining, land grabbing, road construction, drug trafficking, and large-scale industrial development continue to push deeper into Indigenous territories. These invasions bring violence, disease, environmental destruction, and displacement. For peoples living in voluntary isolation, even limited contact with outsiders can have devastating consequences.
Protecting PIACI territories is therefore not only a human rights obligation—it is a matter of life and death.
Traditionally, the Awá indigenous peoples lived as hunter-gatherers in small, isolated communities. Over recent decades, many were displaced by invasions of their land, and some were killed by illegal loggers. As their forest territory shrank, most communities were forced to abandon their nomadic way of life. These groups, known as peoples of recent contact, now serve as spokespeople for their relatives who remain in voluntary isolation.
Across the Amazon, Indigenous communities, environmental defenders, researchers, journalists, and human rights advocates are risking their lives to protect these territories. Many have paid the ultimate price.
Among them was Paulino Guajajara, an Indigenous leader and member of the Guardians of the Forest, a group formed to defend the forests and Indigenous lands of the Arariboia Territory in Brazil from illegal loggers. Paulino was murdered in 2019 while protecting his people's land and the isolated Awá communities that depend upon it.
“Even if they kill me, I won’t stop fighting.” — Paulo Paulino Guajajara, an Indigenous forest guardian who was killed by illegal loggers while protecting the Arariboia Indigenous Territory and defending the rights and lands of the uncontacted Awá people who live there. His words remain a symbol of the courage and sacrifice of Indigenous land defenders across the Amazon.
Another was Bruno Pereira, one of Brazil's leading experts on isolated Indigenous peoples. For years, Bruno worked alongside Indigenous communities to secure and defend territories where isolated peoples live. In 2022, he and British journalist Dom Phillips were murdered while documenting threats facing Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
Their deaths are a reminder that defending the Amazon remains one of the most dangerous forms of human rights and environmental work in the world.
But their legacy lives on.
Bruno Pereira was a Brazilian Indigenous affairs expert who dedicated his career to protecting Indigenous peoples and their territories in the Amazon. Working with the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), he advocated for isolated Indigenous communities and worked to combat illegal logging, mining, and other activities threatening their lands. In 2022, Pereira was killed alongside journalist Dom Phillips while conducting fieldwork in the Brazilian Amazon. His commitment to Indigenous rights and rainforest protection continues to inspire conservation efforts and the defense of Indigenous communities across the region.
Across the rainforest, Indigenous patrols continue to monitor their territories. Community leaders continue to document invasions. Researchers continue to gather evidence. Journalists continue to tell the stories that powerful interests would prefer remain hidden. And Indigenous peoples themselves continue to defend the forests they have protected for thousands of years.
The future of the Amazon is inseparable from the future of its Indigenous peoples.
By supporting efforts to protect Indigenous territories, strengthen Indigenous leadership, expose illegal activities, and uphold the rights of peoples living in voluntary isolation, we help safeguard not only unique cultures and human lives, but one of the most important ecosystems on Earth.
The fight for Amazonia is a fight for human dignity, cultural survival, biodiversity, and the future of our shared planet.
Initiatives dedicated to inform about indigenous peoples living in isolation and in initial contact within the Amazon
A Documentary by indigenous Filmmakers about the situation of an uncontacted Awá indigenous group living in the Arariboia Territory
Indigenous filmmakers from Midia India released 2021 a documentary alerting to the grave situation faced by their uncontacted relatives the Awá Guajá, from the Araribóia indigenous territory, one of the most endangered in the Amazon. Indigenous filmmaker Flay Guajajara took this footage, creating this documentary to mobilize forest defenders globally.
Erisvan Guajajara of Mídia Índia said in an interview: “We didn’t have the Awá’s permission to film, but we know that it’s important to use these images because if we don’t show them around the world, the Awá will be killed by loggers. We need to show that the Awá exist and their lives are at risk. We’re using these images as a cry for help and we’re calling for the government to protect the lives of our relatives who don’t want contact with outsiders.”
Text: IfNotUsThenWho?