Brazil plans to fly in missionaries to convert remote Amazon tribes

Evangelical Christians are preparing helicopter missions to remote parts of the Amazon, prompting fears for the future of uncontacted tribes under Brazil’s ultraconservative president.

The planned flights have triggered a backlash from NGOs and tribal communities warning that contact with missionaries could lead to entire communities being ‘‘wiped out’’.

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s hard-Right president, is pushing for major reform to the government’s approach to the Amazon, seeking to expand logging and mining in the region while rewriting environmental regulations that favour indigionous peoples.

The former army captain, who swept to power on a pledge to tackle corruption and reinvigorate the economy, last week appointed a fundamentalist former missionary to head the government’s programmes to protect uncontacted tribes.

Ricardo Lopes Dias, an anthropologist and evangelical pastor, will head the department for isolated and recently contacted tribes at Funai, the indigenous agency.

His appointment raised eyebrows given his previous membership of Ethnos360, the evangelical Christian group that has secured funding for the new helicopter missions.

Ethnos360 claims it is ‘‘opening the doors’’ to reach 10 previously uncontacted tribes in the Vale do Javari, the area with the highest concentration of isolated indigenous peoples in the world.

The group, which believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, says its mission is to bring Christianity to all people whose ‘‘cultures and languages have isolated them from the gospel’’.

But critics say the move is a direct affront to Brazil’s no-contact policy with isolated tribes, in place since 1988. ‘‘It’s now clear that there’s been a conscious decision by the Brazilian government to open up indigenous territories to evangelical missionaries, as a key step in the takeover of their lands and the exploitation of their gold, minerals, timber and other resources,’’ said Sarah Shenker, campaign co-ordinator at Survival International. ‘‘If it’s not stopped, many tribes will be wiped out.’’

Indigenous rights groups also raised serious doubts about Ethnos360’s past missions. ‘‘The indigenous people always

‘‘It’s now clear that there’s been a conscious decision by the Brazilian government to open up indigenous territories to evangelical missionaries, as a key step in the takeover of their lands and the exploitation of their gold, minerals, timber and other resources.’’ Sarah Shenker Survival International

tell us the same thing: that they want peace, to raise their children and live their lives’’, said one spokesman from the Indigenous Missionary Council, linked to the Catholic church, which defends the country’s no-contact policy.

Survival International’s director said the group ‘‘has a record of manhunts and contacts leading to death and disease, sex abuse in its schools, and bringing in deadly epidemics’’.

Stephen Corry added: ‘‘These are the last people who should be anywhere near uncontacted tribes.’’