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05/17/2005:

"Lost tribe at risk after court victory for Amazon loggers"

Campaigners in the Brazilian Amazon fear a group of as yet uncontacted indigenous peoples in a remote corner of the rainforest face "annihilation" after a court overturned state efforts to protect them from logging firms.
The supreme court ruled that the company can continue logging in the densely forested area at the Pardo river in north-west Mato Grosso state, which borders Bolivia.

In his ruling, Judge Luiz Fux said that the company Sulmap Sul Amazonia would suffer "irreversible damage" if logging was banned.

The group of hunter-gatherers, known by a neighbouring group as the "little people" was first sighted in the 1980s, but workers of the government's indigenous peoples protection agency, known as Funai, only found signs of a hurried departure in their abandoned villages when sent to contact them.
Arrows, hammocks, baskets of nuts and footprints have been found, but no direct contact has been made, as the group flees into the forest.
Full:guardian.co.uk