By Christopher Herndon and William Park | Founders
Community-based initiative in partnership with Acaté protects uncontacted tribal groups in isolation
To reach the Matsés territory requires either a weeklong boat trip passing through Brazil; a flight on a small plane; or a multi-day walk through the jungle. This inaccessibility and the Matsés fierce reputation have been the major factors protecting this area historically. The Matsés communal territory is the key to a binational area of the Amazon Rainforest that includes the Matsés National Reserve, the Sierra del Divisor National Park, the Yavari Tapiche Indigenous Reserve and the Vale do Javari Reserve in Brazil (alone the size of Austria). Together this region is one of the largest and wildest areas left on our planet and the home of the highest number of people still living in voluntary isolation or uncontacted people. These people are at risk of life-threatening disease should they be contacted by adventure seekers, fanatical missionaries, misguided governmental operatives, or illegal resource extractors. The Matsés have had encounters with the uncontacted in their ancestral hunting grounds and there is the potential for conflict. In southern portions of the Peruvian Amazon there have been deadly conflicts when uncontacted bands raid isolated villages seeking metal tools and food stores. The movement patterns of the uncontacted groups that enter the Matsés Ancestral Territory are unclear but are likely linked to land use changes to the southeast in Brazil and to normal seasonal movements for hunting.
The potential for conflict remains if one of these bands should raid a Matsés camp looking for axes or other metal implements. The Yaquerana River (headwaters of the Javari River) is the international border between Peru and Brazil through part of Matsés territory. As such, it is not legal for the Matsés to close the river to boat traffic from the settler communities downriver in both Peru and Brazil. Poachers take advantage of this to enter the territory for commercial fishing, endangered turtle egg collecting, and timber cutting. The threat of construction of a road from the Ucayali to the Javari makes this work even more urgent. The road will bring a wave of settlers looking for new land to exploit along with the timber mafias who will use the road to exploit previously inaccessible highly valuable timber species like Spanish Cedar and Mahogany.
In early 2021 Acaté was approached by a Matsés youth association based in the Matsés community of Puerto Alegre, the southernmost village on the Yaquerana River and gateway to the remote headwaters. This youth association is called Iscu, the Matsés term for oropendolas, birds that live in large colonies and weave hanging nests; their calls are an emblematic sound of the Amazon. The Iscu association wanted to create a conservation area, protect the people in voluntary isolation through creation of a monitored buffer zone between areas of Matsés inhabitation and areas where there are uncontacted groups living in isolation, and start a conservation program for endangered river turtles. As Acaté is the only NGO that carries out on-the-ground projects in Matsés territory and has a long track record of successful projects, we were the logical partner for this initiative.
Everyone was in agreement that the idea was not to look for or to make any attempt to contact them but to patrol the southern edge of the Matsés Ancestral Territory for outsider incursions into the area, from timber cutters, frontier settlers, hunters, or adventure tourists. The Matsés would take appropriate measures to avoid conflicts with them while shielding them from encroachment.
Creation of an Observation Post and Initiation of Patrols
To realize this project the Iscu members built an observation up-river from the village with support from Acaté. They built two small structures, both on stilts, on the river bank, with local materials. The observation post is on a high point of the river bank and near a straighter section of the river for maximum visibility in both directions. This guard post allows the Matsés to monitor a key area of the Yaquerana as a base of operations for the patrols.
The presence of the post also discourages poachers. Acaté provided a short-wave radio so they could communicate over all the Matsés territory and to the settler community of Angamos if necessary. We also provided them with a motor, flashlights, camera trap, boots, machetes, fuel, vests, and food supplies for the patrols. The Matsés would look for signs of uncontacted such as footprints (barefoot) and for broken stems in the understory. Typically, when younger Matsés or mestizos walk off trail in the forest they cut understory plants to mark a trail for the way back with a machete. An elder Matsés or an uncontacted person would just bend the plants over to mark their trail. The other way that the Matsés have noted the presence of uncontacted peoples in isolation without direct visual contact have been through hearing vocalizations, such as calls for hunting monkeys. Like the Matsés, they mimic the monkey’s vocalizations when hunting, hoping to draw the monkeys close enough for a shot with bow and arrow. The Matsés can tell the difference between a real spider monkey call or whinnie and that of a human mimic.
The patrols consisted of three or four person teams and lasted for one week each. The patrols have also deployed a camera trap near areas with high densities of animals, mineral deposits where peccaries wallow and there are higher densities of animals.
To date, six patrols have been carried out over the two years of the project with support from Acaté. If anyone was able to pass unnoticed upriver they would have to travel by boat. The patrols look for boats on the river banks. Poachers would be wary of being discovered so they would go up a smaller stream and attempt to hide their boat in the vegetation. The patrols being aware of this check the likely areas where a boat might be hidden. To date, no intruders have been found. During one patrol in December 2021, the group found a trail marked by bent over vegetation and found a barefoot print. This is not definitive proof of uncontacted people entering the Matsés territory but is another data point adding to other data points demonstrating the importance of this project. Upon this discovery they withdrew from the area to make sure they did not have an encounter.
Acaté provided the supplies for an expedition to demarcate the area and produce a map. Demarcating the areas away from the river required a weeklong overland trek. The capacity to survey and generate their own maps was previously acquired through the Matsés Indigenous Mapping Initiative in which the Matsés mapped, for the first time, their ancestral territories in Peru. In this landmark initiative supported by Acaté, the Matsés mapped over a period of five years thousands of culturally important mapping points including locations of ancestral longhouses, sites of frontier skirmishes with Peruvian soldiers and areas of ecological importance as well as all of the waterways in their territory were recorded for the first time with their original Matsés names.
The Protection of Isolated Peoples project is a on-the-ground community-based initiative supported by Acaté and is not associated with the Javari-Tapiche Corridor concept that is presently being advanced by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture. The Javari-Tapiche Corridor and other reserves to protect peoples in isolation created by the Peruvian Government have been challenged in regional districts through introduction of legislation backed by extractive industries. The fate of these plans is uncertain. In any eventuality and path forward, the success of these reserves will depend on on-the-ground conservation efforts, such as of those described herein this field report, led by the communities most invested to ensure the integrity of these highly sensitive areas for conservation and to protect the self-determination of isolated groups. In our April 2022 meeting with the Matsés leadership attended by the entire Acaté team we carefully reviewed the work that had been done and laid out the plans and vision for the next steps for the project.
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By Christopher Herndon and William Park | Co-Founders
By David Fleck, Ph.D. | Field Coordinator
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