India and Brazil - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 184

in 1952. One of the largest tribes is the Yanomami, a people well studied
by anthropologists and known for their fierceness.
Uncontacted Indians continue to dwell in remote parts of the country,
often in areas protected as parks or reservations. FUNAI guesses there
may be 30 or 40 groups, with sizes ranging from a few dozen to a few
thousand. Its current policy is to avoid all contact and let the tribes con-
tinue as they are. Once FUNAI discovers an uncontacted tribe, it notes its
presence and places it off limits to everyone, including medical workers,
anthropologists, and missionaries.
All the Indians face pressure from settlers, oil explorers, and mine
prospectors. In the 1980s, gold was discovered in the north, especially in
Yanomami territory. Some Indians were callously chased off as miners
illegally appropriated their land. Others contracted diseases like influ-
enza, measles, and tuberculosis. Some were shot for interfering with the
prospecting. Tens of thousands of non-Indians invaded to mine the gold.
Mercury used to reduce the gold ore polluted the rivers and killed fish.
Roads destroyed the rain forest. Elsewhere in Brazil, logging and farming
has harmed the Indians.
While the policy of developing the interior since 1955 has harmed the
Indians, they had suffered even more in the 19th century during the Rubber
Boom. At first the rubber traders hired the Indians to tap the trees in the
forest, but they could not supply enough latex so they imported people
from the coast to become tappers. After the boom collapsed at the end of
the 19th century, they stayed on as subsistence farmers along the banks of
the rivers, growing bananas and corn. Although geographically dispersed
across the entire basin, their primitive farming techniques did not cause
much damage. The one hazard comes from farmers who make charcoal
to sell to towns downstream. Although these people typically have Indian
blood mixed with Portuguese and a little African, they speak Portuguese
and do not share the indigenous Indian culture. The local term for them is
cabuco or cabulco , meaning “copper colored.”
The indigenous people did not receive government recognition and help
until 1910 with the establishment of the Indian Protection Service (SPI).
A leader was Candido Rondon, famous with many North Americans as the
co-leader with former president Theodore Roosevelt in their exploration
of the River of Doubt. Rondon was an Army officer who built telegraph
lines in remote regions, thus making the acquaintance of the native
people. His father was Portuguese and his mother was of the Bororo tribe
so he had a special sympathy. Rondon was the first director of the SPI, but