The man looks out from his hut. A still from the film Corumbiara, by the film-maker Vincent Carelli.

Dear Jack,

When I heard the news last week that the Indigenous man known as “The loneliest man in the world” had died, I felt a profound sadness.

He’d lived entirely alone for 26 years, deep in the Brazilian Amazon, and had resisted every attempt by government teams to make contact with him.

When you knew his story this was entirely understandable, because everyone else close to him – his family, his friends, all the other members of his tribe – had been killed in a series of attacks that would have gone unnoticed by the rest of the world had he not managed, somehow, to survive.

Over the years a few dedicated individuals in Brazil managed to piece together what had happened. They heard rumors of cattle ranchers’ hired gunmen bragging in a bar about killing a group of Indigenous people, and months later they found the crime scene – the huts, deep in the forest, had been bulldozed in an attempt to cover it up. The gunmen thought they’d killed everyone but one man had somehow survived.

We’ll never know how he escaped the attacks, or even what his name was. I accompanied a government team monitoring his territory in 2005, and will never forget how the sense of his presence permeated the forest. In one of his abandoned huts we saw the hole he dug to hide in – evidence, most likely, of the severe trauma he had experienced.

It was a deeply unsettling experience but I thought it was important to bear witness to this man’s courage. The news of his passing has made headlines around the world, and I’m glad that in death his story has not been forgotten.

But his experience, though extraordinarily tragic, is far from unique. There are more than 100 uncontacted tribes in Brazil alone, and many others around the world. Their lands – and their lives – are continually under threat. 

Just last week it was revealed that a Brazilian company is trying to mine gold in the territory of the Piripkura, one of the most vulnerable uncontacted tribes in the world who have endured a series of genocidal attacks.

Don’t the Piripkura have the right to exist, just as much as “we” do? Do we really want to do nothing while such peoples are snuffed out in the name of “progress” and economic gain? Will we just stand by and watch?

Survival stands for a better, more tolerant, world, one which values human diversity, rather than tries to erase it. We know our campaigns – your  campaigns – have already helped many such tribes to survive, but there is much, much more to do.

Please give anything you can to support this vital work. I know times are very hard for many, but I also know that there are countless people around the world who believe, as we do, that such abuses have no place in the modern world, and we should do everything we can to stop them.

With thanks,

Fiona Watson

Research and Advocacy Director