fPcN interCultural:

defenders of free tribal life

An Indian tribe that has had no formal contact with Western civilization has been located in a remote Amazon region, federal authorities said Friday.

The Metyktire tribe, with about 87 members, was found last week in an area that is difficult to reach because of thick jungle and a lack of nearby rivers some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) northwest of Rio de Janeiro, said Mario Moura, a spokesman for the Federal Indian Bureau, or Funai.

The tribe is a subgroup of the Kayapo tribe, and lives on its 4.9-million-hectare (12.1-million-acre) Menkregnoti Indian reservation, Moura said.

Indigenous groups are threatened as Peru gears up for an energy boom.

POROTOBANGO, PERU

Raised in palm huts deep in the Peruvian Amazon, Gregorio Torres never imagined that below his home was something called natural gas.

Now his Machiguengua Indian settlement in this rain-forest river clearing has solar-powered radio gifted by an international oil company, corrugated tin roofs, T-shirts with company logos, and a shelf of Western medicine.

But this incipient natural-gas boom is bringing new worries, too.