Half of the world’s remaining uncontacted Indigenous tribes could disappear by 2035. Credit: Flickr / Arm User Facility / CC BY NC SA 2-0
For centuries, indigenous tribes have lived off the grid as hunters and forest guardians, choosing preservation over exploitation. Now, a new Survival International report warns that their silence could soon become permanent.
Without urgent global protection, half of the world’s remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes could vanish by 2035, taking with them irreplaceable cultures, languages, and knowledge of the natural world.
Hidden indigenous tribes
The report identifies 196 Indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation across ten countries, from the dense rainforests of South America to remote islands in Asia and the Pacific.
Most of these groups live within the Amazon Basin, particularly in Brazil, where they depend entirely on the forest for food, shelter, and spiritual connection. Others inhabit regions of Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, and Venezuela, as well as isolated areas of India and Indonesia.
These peoples are not relics of the past but living societies that have chosen isolation after centuries of violence, enslavement, and disease brought by outsiders. Their isolation is not rejection. It is a protective shield shaped by painful history and sustained by profound respect for the lands that sustain them.
Encroachment and exploitation of Indigenous tribes
Despite international laws that recognize their right to remain uncontacted, the threats closing in on these tribes are escalating at an alarming rate.
Illegal logging poses the most immediate danger, threatening around 65 percent of known uncontacted groups. Mining operations, including those extracting gold, lithium, and nickel, endanger another 40 percent, often with government approval. Expanding agriculture and cattle ranching have encroached upon nearly one-fifth of Indigenous territories, replacing ancient forests with fields and pastures.
Beyond industrial exploitation, criminal networks, drug traffickers, and illegal miners increasingly operate in these remote areas. Even missionaries and social media influencers have intruded into restricted zones, seeking conversion or online attention. Each intrusion risks catastrophe: a single exposure to common viruses such as influenza or measles can wipe out half of an isolated population within months.
Protectors of life and biodiversity
The Survival International report emphasizes that uncontacted Indigenous peoples are not only vital to cultural diversity but also to the planet’s ecological stability.
Their territories are among the most biodiverse regions on Earth and serve as crucial buffers against climate change. Where these tribes live, the forest remains intact. Where they vanish, deforestation accelerates.
“These communities are the most effective defenders of the natural world,” said Caroline Pearce, director of Survival International. “Protecting their lands means protecting the planet itself. Their survival depends on our restraint—on leaving them in peace.”
A race against time
The organization calls on governments to enforce strict no-contact policies, legally recognize Indigenous territories, and hold corporations and individuals accountable for illegal intrusions. It also urges the expansion of satellite monitoring and on-the-ground protection teams to prevent encroachment before it occurs.
Despite mounting threats, many uncontacted peoples continue to resist and adapt. They move deeper into the forest, rebuild their homes, and preserve their ancestral traditions. Their survival—fragile yet steadfast—remains a testament to human endurance and balance in a world increasingly losing both.
An Awá man from Brazil, who once left the forest, spoke with quiet regret: “I had a good life in the forest. If I meet others still there, I will tell them: stay. There is nothing out here for you.”
The Survival International report ends with a stark warning: if global action does not come soon, the last uncontacted tribes may vanish within a single generation. Their disappearance would mark not only the loss of unique cultures but also a profound failure to protect the living memory of humanity’s harmony with nature.
