Newswise — Research by the Santa Fe Institute's Marcus Hamilton and his collaborators at the University of Missouri seeks better data that could help preserve the threatened landscapes on which indigenous human groups depend.
There are an estimated 100 uncontacted human groups remaining in the world today; most live in remote parts of the Amazon Basin. As deforestation, agriculture, and mining operations press in on their horizons, their forager-hunter-gatherer way of life is increasingly threatened. In fact, says Hamilton, with the range and magnitude of current threats, ours may be the last generation to co-exist with uncontacted, indigenous human societies.
Many uncontacted groups live within reservations ranging from a few hundred acres to tens of thousands of acres, but very little is known about how these groups move through and use their landscapes as they find food, move camps, conduct trade, and socialize with neighboring groups. Contacting “uncontacted” groups is very risky, primarily because these groups often become exposed to diseases to which they have no immunity, and mortality rates can be catastrophic.
In addition, many groups actively resist contact with the outside world, such that any attempt to make contact with such groups must be under very controlled, government-sanctioned circumstances.
"We need a better way to record their movements so policy makers can make better-informed decisions about conserving their habitats and preserving their ways of life without having to go through the dangerous and destructive process of first contact," says Hamilton.
The planned project tests a new method of remote observation using small, inexpensive satellite tracking devices for temporarily recording the movements of uncontacted groups.
The researchers will start by recording the movements of the Ache, a group of indigenous forager-horticulturists in the rainforests of northern Paraguay. The Ache were contacted by explorers almost a century ago, and anthropologists have been cohabitating with them and studying them since as a proxy for other indigenous human groups.
The researchers will work with the Ache to test a small number of tracking devices incorporated into their pots, baskets, and tools, keeping records of their movements remotely as they hunt, forage, migrate, trade, and interact with other indigenous groups under the rainforest canopy.
If this pilot project is successful, the researchers hope to propose a way to study the movements of uncontacted people without directly contacting them (i.e.: through the indirect trade of tools and baskets with neighboring indigenous societies.) This, of course, would be under very controlled, government-sanctioned conditions.
The research is highlighted in a crowdfunding campaign being conducted in partnership with the SciFund Challenge and Rockethub.com. The campaign ends Saturday.
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