Bulletin articles
The first steps
October 16 is World Food Sovereignty Day. At its last international conference in Indonesia, this past June, La Via Campesina placed heavy emphasis on food sovereignty as a “global alternative”, not only for peasant farmers but for society as a whole. This emphasis is well deserved, because the threats to food sovereignty are many.
Introduction / Background
Several years ago, a photograph made headlines around the world. In it, an indigenous man in a small village in the middle of the rainforest is aiming a bow and arrow up at the airplane in which the photographer was flying over the scene. The photograph attracted international media coverage because it documented the existence of a group of indigenous people living in isolation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, removed from any contact with so-called “civilization”.
Photo: Survival International.
It is remarkable that in the second decade of the 21st century much of the available evidence points to the existence of about 100 uncontacted tribes living on our planet.
The fact that there are any at all is testimony to their resilience, ingenuity, self-sufficiency and adaptability.
Photo: By Pablo Cingolani. A Yuqui indigenous girl from the Bolivian Amazon. The Yuqui were a people living in isolation until they were contacted by missionaries between 1967 and 1991. Now they are a people in a situation of extreme vulnerability, precisely as a result of this forced contact.
Image: Approximate location of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact. Source: Pueblos Indígenas en aislamiento voluntario y contacto inicial, IWGIA – IPES – 2012.