Before 1988, Brazil had no contingency plans for unexpected encounters with Indigenous peoples living in isolation. If government officials, developers or explorers accidentally stumbled upon a camp, the protocol was to make contact — a move that can upend societies and spread deadly diseases.

Driven by the devastating consequences of past contact, in 1987 the Brazilian state instituted a public policy that sought to respect and protect Indigenous peoples in isolation. The no-contact principle was then included in the country’s Federal Constitution in 1988, which set new standards that recognized Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, their territories and “uses, customs and traditions.”

That same year, Antenor Vaz, an international expert on recognition methodologies and protection policies for the isolated and initially contacted communities, was approached by Funai, Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, with a job proposal. The agency had obtained information about unrecognized people in the Amazonian state of Rondônia. Vaz was asked to coordinate, alongside Francisco de Assis Costa, a special front to confirm the existence of the uncontacted people and to develop, for the first time, new procedures to record evidence of uncontacted people while maintaining the no-contact principle. He accepted.

This work eventually led to the recognition of the Massaco Indigenous Territory, which was the country’s first such territory designated for the exclusive occupation of Indigenous peoples of as yet unknown ethnicity living in voluntary isolation. Since then, Vaz has continued to work tirelessly on public policies for isolated and recently contacted Indigenous peoples.

As a regional adviser for GTI-PIACI, an international working group committed to the protection, defense and promotion of the rights of isolated and initially contacted peoples (PIACI), he recently helped coordinate the creation of a new report to help governments, Indigenous organizations and NGOs prove the existence of Indigenous peoples living in isolation.

The 302-page document, which was launched in April at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, contains methods and information to help inform practices across South America. According to the report, there are 188 records of Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, yet only 60 are officially recognized by the state.

“The International Working Group on Isolated Indigenous Peoples [GTI-PIACI], AIDESEP [a Peruvian national Indigenous rights organization] and several other national Indigenous organizations have been a part of this work process to ensure greater visibility and greater consideration at the U.N. level,” Julio Cusurichi Palacios, a prominent Indigenous leader from Peru, told Mongabay. “This work is not only focused on the issue of PIACI in Peru, but also on all the countries in the Amazon Basin where there are isolated Indigenous peoples.”

In an interview with Mongabay’s Aimee Gabay, Vaz talks about the strategies listed in the report, including methods learned from Indigenous peoples, why it’s important to confirm and recognize the existence of isolated peoples, and how their protection leads to better biodiversity conservation.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Mongabay: Why is it difficult to confirm the presence of voluntarily isolated peoples?

Antenor Vaz: I think there are two very important characteristics. One is the difficulty that politics in general imposes on not recognizing the existence of isolated peoples. Once there are peoples, there is territory. If there is territory, it must be demarcated.

Territory has always been the cause of conflicts around the world. If we look more closely, there are often people, such as ranchers, oil workers or miners, who are interested in the territory [of isolated peoples].

Another political issue is clearly that there is a lack of political will to recognize the existence of peoples. It is better for these peoples to remain invisible.

The second characteristic, I think, has to do with procedures for achieving recognition. Obviously, in the political sphere, if there is no interest in recognizing, there is no interest in defining procedures. That’s the big difficulty. How to create a procedure or method for recognition? And what happens? There are no trained teams.

The problem is that while there are people trained for this, the majority of them are Indigenous people, and the state rarely recognizes their knowledge. Indigenous peoples have this knowledge. They know how to discover evidence with very sophisticated techniques and knowledge of the jungle. If you’re walking in the jungle, a person who knows the jungle knows that a certain animal passed by thanks to its paw prints, its tracks, its feces, or because they know that near this region there’s a fruit that this certain animal likes to eat. It is the same with humans.

When humans walk in the jungle, they leave their footprints on the ground. So Indigenous peoples are very adept at that. The problem is that the state, based on a Western scientific perspective, typically doesn’t recognize this knowledge of these peoples as scientific. Mainly because the Indigenous peoples’ process of recognizing the existence of isolated peoples is a holistic understanding.

There’s a spiritual component that shamans communicate with the isolated peoples as well. This, for Indigenous peoples, is crucial for recognition.

Mongabay: The report presents some methods for confirming their presence. Can you give some examples of the strategies it includes?

Antenor Vaz: Two very distinct, very clear blocs emerge when different actors are discussing which methodology they use. One is called “direct methodologies for recognition [of isolated peoples]” and the other block of methodologies would be “indirect methodologies for the recognition of the existence of [isolated peoples].”

In South America, at one point, there was almost a war between experts. Some would say, “Oh, because you use indirect methodology.” The others said, “But you use the direct methodology.”

There are defenders of the indirect methodology who said that those who used the direct methodology are promoting contact.

When I delved into the methodologies, procedures or protocols of both direct and indirect methodologies, I realized and concluded that there’s only one difference between them. Everything else is the same.

For example, both methodologies make field trips into the jungle to verify evidence reported by other people. Both methodologies use satellite systems to gather information about the isolated individuals from satellite images. Both methodologies use survey and interview procedures.

What’s the difference? The indirect methodology only goes into the field to verify evidence reported by third parties. Once it has gone into the field and confirmed or refuted this evidence, it stops there. The direct methodology doesn’t stop there. From the moment evidence of a particular person reported by third parties is confirmed in a specific location, direct methodologies promote expeditions to find new evidence. Why is this? Because if the recognition process involves a territorial definition, how can you know the extent of an Indigenous people’s territory without fairly extensive expeditions in regions to discover evidence of territorial occupation?

Both methodologies have a principle, which is the following: You should only go into the field if you are certain that the isolated people are not in that region. Both obey the same premise. This is a form that adapts very well to the methodologies provided by states and also civil society organizations. The difference is that these methods are different if you look for new evidence.

There are protocols for coexistence, respect and recognition on the part of Indigenous peoples. Also, in all the methodologies cited by Indigenous organizations or Indigenous peoples, there is a spiritual component that is lacking in Western institutions.

Mongabay: How can we ensure we don’t confuse isolated individuals/families with others?

Antenor Vaz: Each person has their own technology (technology in the broadest possible sense). Each person has a way of establishing relationships with the environment. So, if you analyze how the Spanish live and coexist in a city, you’re very likely to find ways that are unique to the Spanish and not to the Brazilians. In the jungle, that’s very clear. For example, if you go to an Indigenous village, it’s possible that any person from that village, upon looking at an arrow, will say, “This arrow was made by this person.”

When we go to the village, the arrows are all the same to us. But the technology, the village itself, has a specific, defined technology because they use one arrow and not another, they use one type of wood and not another. Although everyone has [an arrow], the manufacturing process can be different for each person.

Mongabay: You compared it earlier to the traces left by animals. Footprints, leftovers of food they eat — all these components are clues that help identify them.

Antenor Vaz: Exactly. For example, some people are hunters, gatherers, farmers and fishermen. But some people are only hunters and gatherers, not farmers. Some people are ceramists, who make pottery, and some people are not. So, there’s a very large mix that characterizes each peoples, not only the language.

For people who speak the Pano language, their habitats are always in one format. They are generally, the vast majority, farmers. The people who speak the Jê language, for example, are all warriors. All Jê peoples’ form of defense is through attack. Therefore, culturally, they have a space for learning how to wage war.

In a more specific sense, the footprints that Indigenous peoples leave on the territory are unique. I’ll give you an example. Some isolated peoples have iron knives. It’s likely that one person was isolated when passing through a place where there were non-Indigenous people. He took a knife that non-Indigenous people use to cut trees, to cut down timber. He’s walking through the forest and cuts down timber himself. It’s different from the cutting of a contacted Indigenous people, and different from that of an Indigenous people and a non-Indigenous person. The way they use their technology is different.

Mongabay: How can governments make the most of the information you presented? How might this inform their protocols and the measures they take?

Antenor Vaz: The first thing I want to emphasize is that there isn’t a single methodology. Each [isolated group] lives in a specific territory, in a specific context, and each country where its people live not only has its own culture but also its own legal framework. Generally, the methodologies that are going to be defined by a country, by a state, must be in accordance with its own legislation and international frameworks.

The great advantage of this regional report is that for the first time, there is an analysis of the methodologies used in each country and within each country by each institution. That’s why the report is divided into two large sections.

The first section is a regional analysis. In this section, we’re not proposing anything. We’re simply saying, “In Bolivia, there is this legal framework and there are protocols for recognizing Indigenous people …” And, “Peru has these protocols for recognizing unidentified people.” Then, we analyze each of the seven countries.

The second part of the report is propositions. That is, within the analysis of the methodology, the protocols, the methodologies and the legal frameworks, what were the fundamental principles that are present in almost all of them?

With that, we list 11 fundamental principles that any action to promote recognition must have as a guide. Nothing should violate these principles; they are fundamental guidelines. There is one principle that is the principle of all principles, which is the principle of no contact. That principle of no contact is a maximum expression of the right to self-determination, and the right to self-determination is what should guide all other actions.

In addition to that, we also present a set of guidelines. We propose a very broad set of very specific situations that states, nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations should be very concerned about when considering their own methodology for recognition.

Mongabay: Why is it important to recognize their presence in the first place?

Antenor Vaz: Any Indigenous or non-Indigenous peoples are only a subject of law if the state recognizes their existence. Today, in South America, we have 188 records of isolated peoples. These records exist because we conducted a thorough survey in each country, revealing evidence or information about isolated peoples in a given region. In total, there are 188 records, but only 60 are recognized by the states. This means we have 128 Indigenous peoples who do not exist in the states. And since they do not exist for the states, they have no rights. And without rights, their territories are accessible to others, primarily those with economic interests.

If every person on the planet thinks, “What would my life be like if the state doesn’t recognize me?” They put themselves in the position of an invisible state. The worst thing is that if we recognize that the state does not recognize certain rights for us, we have a path, we have instruments to request and obtain these rights. We have a voice before the state. These Indigenous peoples [in isolation], do not have a voice before the state.

At the political level, there is a movement across South America, primarily in [national legislatures], there is a very large movement supported by the far right, supported by agribusiness and agro-extractivists, to inform the population that these people do not exist.

For almost two decades, these politicians tried to impose their interests against the rights of Indigenous peoples. It turns out that, over time, the evidence of the existence of isolated peoples became so strong that, today, few [legislators] speak out against the truth of the existence of these groups.

Since the evidence was clear, today there is a group of representatives, primarily in Peru, Brazil and Paraguay, who claim that the methods for confirming and recognizing the existence of a people in isolation are not scientific. Therefore, they use this as an instrument (disregarding it as if it were unscientific) to enter the courts or even congress itself to rewrite laws.

This document is of fundamental importance because it presents, in a way, scientific evidence and a method that can be considered a scientific method. During its launch at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the president of AIDESEP of Peru spoke precisely from this perspective, because AIDESEP has been working hard to prove to authorities, judges and congressmen that the evidence can be scientifically verified.

Mongabay: Can confirming the existence of voluntarily isolated peoples and recognizing them contribute to better biodiversity conservation?

Antenor Vaz: The main issue is that these people are 100% dependent on nature. If there is a change in nature, these people are the first to feel the effects. Of course, it’s obvious that they also indirectly depend on us, because if we don’t implement legal frameworks and protection instruments, deforestation and its impacts will quickly reach them.

Their existence in their territory requires environmental conservation. And a conserved, preserved environment is what we need to address the issue of climate change. For example, I often say that for isolated peoples, the jungle, the mountains and the forests are their pharmacy, their supermarket, their school and their city. If you destroy the forest, you are destroying the pharmacy, the supermarket, you are destroying everything about them.

There’s also a spiritual component to all of this. The transcendental relationship they have is with specific locations in the forest where their entire transcendental relationship lies. For us Catholics, our transcendental relationship goes to Jerusalem. These people, no. There are rivers, there are lakes, lagoons, there is vegetation, there are trees, there are hills, there are mountains, there are mountains where their spirits, their origins and the history of their origin are.

The worldview of Indigenous peoples in general is very much in tune with the forest. That’s why we say that land is life. Land is not a space with economic value.

Banner image: Dozens of isolated Indigenous Mashco Piro men and boys on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon. Image courtesy of Survival International. 

Indigenous delegates at the U.N. raise alarm on isolated peoples in the Amazon