BBC英语口语:接触外部世界

Background: 秘鲁东南部丛林地区当局说，他们将保护当地封闭的土著部落打击那些侵犯他人土地的非法伐木者。上周巴西政府的卫星照片显示，一群来路不明佩带弓箭的亚马逊人出现在接近秘鲁边境的地区。

【文本】

The extraordinary images of a startled Amazon tribe, their bodies painted red and black, firing arrows at an aircraft circulated the world last week.

The Brazilian government organised a flight packed with photographers to prove that such groups of people still live in isolation in the Amazon rainforest.

Although anthropologists weren't able to name the tribe it's believed that they had travelled a short distance from neighbouring Peru.

Illegal loggers have been accused of driving the tribes into Brazilian territory.

Now authorities in Peru's Amazon state of Madre de Dios say they'll stop illegal loggers who travel deep into the forest in search of tropical hardwoods and are often the first to encounter the tribes.

Apart from the possibility of violent confrontations, encounters with outsiders are often fatal because the isolated people lack the antibodies to protect themselves from a common cold or the flu.

The Peruvian government has also sent a team to the jungle to determine whether or not the photographed tribe had been displaced from Peru by loggers.

It's been reluctant to set aside new areas of land for uncontacted tribes. Some officials have even denied the existence of such tribes but there are signs of a changing attitude.

In the state oil leasing agency's latest auction of concessions earlier this year it pointedly avoided areas set aside as indigenous reserves.

The impact of the latest sighting is forcing Peru to accept that some of mankind's last isolated people live on its territory and it has a duty to protect them.