Somewhere in the forests of the Amazon, the Indonesian archipelago, or the islands of the Pacific, people are living as they always have. They know the outside world exists. They have chosen not to join it. That choice, deliberate and rational, is under assault.
The first International Indigenous Knowledge Exchange and Solidarity Gathering on Nickel Mining, Territorial Defense, and Indigenous Peoples in Isolation brought together indigenous organisations and allies in Jakarta between January 26 and 29, with a clear mission: strengthen a global alliance and draft a declaration to protect the rights of the world’s uncontacted and isolated peoples.
A Collaboration for Indigenous Protection
The gathering brought together a broad coalition of indigenous organisations and allies: Indonesia’s largest indigenous organisation AMAN (Aliansi Masyarak Adat Nusantara), the SIRGE Coalition, Survival International and numerous more to draft a declaration and share strategies for protecting isolated peoples. Discussions centred heavily on resistance to nickel mining across the three continents, with Indonesia serving as a critical and urgent flashpoint.
Survival International estimates there are at least 196 uncontacted indigenous groups living across 10 countries in South America, Asia, and the Pacific. Almost 95% live in the Amazon, with Brazil home to 124 groups. Tens of thousands of people face extinction within a decade if current trajectories continue: over 90% face direct threats from resource extraction, and 40% face land invasions for gold or nickel mining. The Indonesian government has granted licenses for at least 19 mining concessions on the land of the Hongana Manyawa, an uncontacted people whose territories are actively being destroyed by Weda Bay Nickel.
Ngigoro, a Hongana Manyawa man, addressed the gathering and shared what it means to finally be included and heard:
“It’s a huge opportunity to meet other Indigenous peoples from around the world and to be able to share my story of when I still had no contact with the outside world… It helped others understand the Hongana Manyawa people.”
The Fight Against Extractive Colonialism
In the Paraguayan Chaco and the Bolivian Amazon, agribusiness is the primary driver of deforestation. In Asia and the Pacific, palm oil and rubber plantations carve through indigenous territory. Drug trafficking gangs operate inside or alongside at least a third of uncontacted groups’ territories in the Amazon, killing to protect their operations.
Sophie Grig, Senior Research and Advocacy Officer at Survival International stressed that extractive industries including logging and mining must be banned on uncontacted peoples’ lands outright, since those peoples cannot give their free, prior, and informed consent to such projects.
Paolo Aguilar
“Uncontacted peoples have the right to exist, and can only do so if their territories are recognised and protected. It’s as simple as that.”
International law agrees. Uncontacted peoples hold collective ownership rights over their territories, and the requirement for free, prior, and informed consent before any development on indigenous land is firmly established. The problem is not the law. The problem is enforcement, and the deliberate dismantling of protections by those who profit from ignoring them.
Brazil adopted a policy of non-contact in 1987, making it one of the stronger national frameworks in the world. But FUNAI, the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples, tasked with implementing those protections has been chronically underfunded and deliberately weakened. In Peru, disinformation campaigns funded by those with economic interests in the rainforest deny the existence of isolated peoples entirely. In Asia and the Pacific, national protections are weaker still.
Uncontacted peoples are not in danger because their way of life is unsustainable. They are in danger because others want what is beneath their feet and above their canopy. Their rejection of contact is a memory. The Nahua people of Peru were forced into contact when oil exploration and logging exposed them to diseases that killed at least half their population in just a few years. The Ayoreo Tatobiegosode in Paraguay were hunted by missionaries seeking to convert them, and many were killed. Uncontacted peoples know this history. Their ongoing choice and borders are a response to it.
The Jakarta Declaration: a call to action
The Jakarta Declaration calls on governments, multilateral institutions, and all relevant actors to “uphold the human rights, ecological justice, and the sustainability of life” and commitment to protect Indigenous Peoples in Isolation, especially those with limited and no contact at all.
It demands a ban on extractive industries, missionary activity, and adventure tourism on uncontacted peoples’ territories with respect to their choice of self-determination. It is grounded in international human rights law. It is also a moral demand that the world stop choosing profit over people.
Activists Without Borders stands in full solidarity with the Indigenous organisations who gathered in Jakarta and with the uncontacted peoples whose survival they are fighting to protect. We call on our community to amplify the Jakarta Declaration, and support the organisations behind it. Fighting for the rights of these peoples is a fight against colonialism, extraction, and the destruction of the living world.
