A drone pilot takes photos of an uncontacted tribe in the Brazilian Amazon

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that A drone pilot takes photos of an uncontacted tribe in the Brazilian Amazon.

Funai also released still photos of objects that were found in the area: an ax made from a stone blade, a thatched hut, canoes made from the hollowed trunks of palm trees.

Images like these can help researchers study Brazil’s uncontacted peoples. “The more we know about isolated communities’ way of living, the more equipped we are to protect them,” Bruno Pereira, a Funai official, tells the Associated Press.

Video has been released for the first time showing an Amazon tribe in Brazil with no known contact to the outside world.

The video, shot by a drone, provides the first-ever images of 16 tribe members walking through their living area in the jungle.

The footage was recently released by Brazil’s government agency for indigenous affairs, known as Funai. The agency is responsible for identifying areas where indigenous populations live, and attempting to protect their communities and land from invasion by outsiders.

Funai said it captured the drone shots during an operation last year to observe isolated communities. The observations took place in the Javari Valley, an indigenous territory in the southwestern part of the Brazilian state of Amazonas.

The group said it waited until now to release the footage to protect its research activities.

In the footage, several members of the isolated tribe can be seen walking through a jungle camp, as well as a deforested area that seems to include crops. One of the tribe members appears to be carrying a bow and arrow.

At least 11 other isolated groups have been confirmed to live in surrounding areas – more than anywhere else in Brazil.

The agency has been studying the community seen in the new images for years, but this was the first time it was able to catch the tribe on camera.

The expedition was undertaken by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, or Funai, which works to protect the rights of indigenous groups. Among the images that the organization released is drone footage showing a clearing in the Javari Valley, a large indigenous reserve. In the clip, people can be seen walking through the clearing, including one person who seems to by carrying a pole or a spear. They do not seem to notice the drone hovering high above the trees.

But the organization does not try to engage with remote Amazon tribes—in fact, doing so can be dangerous. According to Survival International, there are around 100 groups living in Brazil’s rainforests that choose to remain isolated from one another and from outsiders, “almost certainly [as] a result of previous disastrous encounters and the ongoing invasion and destruction of their forest home.” A major concern is disease; uncontacted peoples are highly vulnerable to infections transmitted by outsiders, and “it is not unusual” for 50 percent of a tribe to be killed by foreign illnesses within the first year of contact, according to Survival.

Other threats come in the form of loggers, miners and farmers who are pushing into indigenous territory. Some groups have fled their land due to noise and pollution, and there have also been direct attacks on indigenous peoples. Last year, for example, ten tribespeople were reportedly killed by gold miners in the Javari Valley.