Ad Campaign for Peru’s Uncontacted Tribes

Global Ad Campaign for Peru’s Uncontacted Tribes

An ad supporting Peru’s last uncontacted tribes is appearing in publications around the world in a bid to stop Peru’s government allowing an oil pipeline to be built through the Indians’ territory.

The ad, created by Survival International, has appeared in publications in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

The ad features an extremely rare photograph of twenty-one uncontacted Indians on a riverbank in south-east Peru and a quotation from Peru’s president, Alan García, claiming the tribes have been ‘invented.’

Download the ad.

‘Our aim is to draw the world’s attention to what Peru’s government is doing to its uncontacted tribes. We're also urging it to scrap plans to build a pipeline deep into the heart of their territory in the north of the country,’ said Survival director Stephen Corry.

Plans for the pipeline were recently revealed by Anglo-French company Perenco, chaired by one of the wealthiest men in France. Perenco aims to extract 300 million barrels of oil from the region, and high-ranking officials in Peru’s government, including President Garcia, hope it will transform the Peruvian economy.

The full text of the ad reads: ‘‘No one has seen them,’ claims Peru’s oil chief. ‘They’ve been invented,’ says Peru’s president. Yet this photograph of an uncontacted tribe proves they exist. The government is giving over 70% of its Amazon forest to oil and gas exploration. It will destroy the tribes that live there.’

Other companies including Repsol YPF, ConocoPhillips, Petrolifera, Petrobras, Pluspetrol and Hunt Oil are all working on land inhabited by uncontacted tribes. Contact could decimate the Indians.

Note: the Indians in the ad are not from one of the tribes potentially affected by the pipeline.

ENDS