"Twilight for the Forest People"

[William J Poser]

Unfortunately, the option of leaving uncontacted people alone
is probably not realistic in the Amazon. Farmers and ranchers looking
for land, rubber tappers, and slavers go pretty much where they please,
even when the government declares an area off limits. Furthermore,
few if any "uncontacted" people in fact have no contact with the
outside world. Even if they have had no contact with Europeans,
they have contacts with other indigenous people who have contacts
with other people in a chain that eventually reaches the cities.
If this chain is long enough the impact of foreign ideas and goods may
be limited and slow, but in all likelihood it will eventually transmit
diseases to which which they have no immunity.

Thus, given both that contact is probably inevitable and that even
without direct contact the transmission of diseases is probably
inevitable, the question is not whether to contact uncontacted people
but how and when. Contact with a small number of people with benign
intentions and vaccines is almost certainly going to be better for
them than contact with slavers or people who want to move into their
land.

Bill