DEPAA EXCLUSIVE: Murutaibo Case Study

DEPAA fights to protect the voiceless and vulnerable indigenous peoples in the Amazon and beyond. But it's easy to overlook just how high the stakes are. When an uncontacted tribe's right to privacy and way of life is threatened, the true risk is not mere assimilation. Life and death are on the line. The stark fate of the Murutaibo tribe reminds us of why we fight.

For centuries, the Murutaibo people in the Calca region of Peru lived a traditional hunter-gatherer life and maintained their unique culture - but now they have been all but wiped out by a cause so simple, so preventable, that many in our midst have forgotten it can even be fatal: The measles virus.

Sometime late last year, the Murutaibo came into contact with an outsider. We don't know who or how, and we may never know. It might have been a well-meaning anthropologist, a logger, a government surveyor, a hiker, or even a biopirate intent on plundering their traditional knowledge of medicinal uses for local flora and fauna.

What we do know is this: a year ago, the Muritaibo tribe numbered roughly 380 men, women and children. In mid-January 2009, the remnants of this tribe, at most a few dozen survivors, stumbled out of the jungle and pleaded for help from the very outsiders they had avoided for decades. Their families had been almost completely wiped out by measles, to them an exotic disease for which they had no native immunity -- much less a vaccine.

Had their choice to remain isolated from the outside world been respected, hundreds of lives would have been saved. Instead, the few survivors remain in hospital suffering complications such as permanent hearing loss or brain damage from encephalitis.

We fight to protect people like the Murutaibo. We fight to save lives. Will you help us?

Biopiracy: Exploiting Traditional Knowledge for Commercial Gain

Biopiracy is the commercial patenting of indigenous knowledge, with no compensation to the tribes who developed this knowledge.

DEPAA believes biopiracy is wrong in every case, from patenting information about the antibiotic properties of a certain flower to a plant that has the power to cure Alzheimer's.

We are campaigning strongly for laws protecting indigenous tribes from biopiracy. We want international law to enforce the intellectual property rights and financial compensation of tribes whose indigenous knowledge is plundered for commercial gain.

Uncontacted Tribes: The Right to Remain Isolated

Uncontacted Tribes are those which choose to reject all contact with the outside world. There are over 100 such tribes across the globe.

Theirs is a dangerous plight, with many facing invasion of their land, deadly epidemics passed on by outsiders and unreported violence. Their choices are few, with many having to spend their life on the run.

DEPAA believe that tribes should have the right to reject all contact with the outside world. Join us and help our campaign for stronger laws to protect these people from intrusion by outsiders whose only aims are to accrue land and profits.

Logging Evil: Stop Deforestation Destroying Lives

Deforestation by loggers of land inhabited by Paraguayan Ayoreo Indian tribes is reaching epidemic proportions. Many tribespeople are constantly uprooting their families as the bulldozers gradually lay waste to their homes. How long before their land is gone forever?

Deforestation such as this flouts international law. DEPAA's campaign is two-fold. Firstly, we want the loggers off the Ayoreo land permanently. Secondly, we want the culprits to face legal action.

Join us to help halt this human rights atrocity.