Brazil's National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) has released new photographs of an isolated tribe living in a remote rainforest region of Acre state near the Peruvian border. FUNAI has been monitoring "uncontacted" tribes—those with only limited dealings with the outside world—from the air in recent years. Photographs of what is believed to be the same tribe were released to the world two years ago. Campaigners say the tribe, believed to be part of the Panoan indigenous group, are threatened by a rise in illegal logging on the Peruvian side of the border.

Brazil's environmental agency, IBAMA, has issued a "partial" installation license for the Belo Monte dam, to be built on the Xingu River in the Amazon. The license allows the initial stages of construction, including the clearing of vast areas of forest, to commence, despite the numerous human rights and environmental violations this involves, and huge opposition from the local population.

After years of waiting—during which they suffered from violent attacks and the degradation of their ancestral lands—the Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana indigenous peoples of Raposa-Serra do Sol in Brazil's Roraima state have received a favorable decision by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). During its last session at the end of October, the IACHR issued an admissibility decision in their case against the government of Brazil. The decision signaled that the government's treatment of indigenous peoples in Raposa may constitute a violation of their human rights. The IACHR is next set to issue a formal judgment on the matter.

As oil companies with pending contracts in the Peruvian Amazon continue to deny the existence of indigenous "peoples in isolation" in remote forest areas, new evidence has emerged. In November, Peru's National Institute of Development of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvians (INDEPA) released video footage of a newly "discovered" tribe in the Kugapakori Nahua Nanti reserve (Upper Camisea River, Cuzco region).

On Nov. 1 the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released the full text of a declassified 2008 report on the agency's involvement in the April 2001 downing of a small civilian plane in Peru. A Peruvian Air Force jet shot the plane down on orders from CIA agents as part of the US "War on Drugs," killing US missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity. Bowers' husband and son and a pilot were also on the plane but survived the attack.

Some 4,000 indigenous people ended their blockade of the Río Marañon in northern Peru Oct. 30, after reaching an agreement with the government and Argentine oil company Pluspetrol. After an oil spill in June, Peru's government started distributing food and goods to the people most affected in the region. However, with Pluspetrol declaring the pollution problem resolved, the government has cut off aid—in spite of indigenous complaints that their lands and waters are still impacted. The agreement calls for peace on both sides until the government's water authority can test the Marañon for pollution. (EFE, Earth First!, Oct. 30)

Survival International is warning the United Nations of massive oil operations in the northern Peruvian Amazon that could decimate uncontacted tribal people. "By permitting companies to operate in this region Peru's government is flagrantly violating international law. Survival believes it very important to investigate this situation as soon as possible and for Peru's government to prohibit the companies from working there. If that is not done, some of the world's most vulnerable citizens could be wiped out," said a letter from Survival to the UN's Special Rapporteur on indigenous peoples, Prof. James Anaya.

Indigenous organizations from the tri-border area where Peru's Madre de Dios region, Bolivia's Pando department and Brazil's Acre state come together met in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, Sept. 28, and issued a statement declaring a "state of emergency" throughout the Amazon rainforest due to the "intense promotion, approval and execution of mega-projects by the governments of the three countries." The Fourth Tri-national Encuentro of Indigenous Peoples especially demanded cancellation of the Inambari hydro-electric plant in Madre de Dios and the Cachuela Esperanza hydro-dam in Pando. The meeting was called by the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). (La Republica, Lima, Servindi, Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources, Sept. 29)