The Last Americans

From Scientific American.com:

The gray-bearded, balding man sips coffee in the kitchen of his apartment in Brasília, Brazil. With a blank stare, he ponders the future of the three things to which he has dedicated his life: “Everything dies at its own time. The forest dies, with it die the Indians, with them die the sertanistas.” But at 67, Sydney Ferreira Possuelo acknowledges that the sertanistas, men who make a living out of protecting the isolated indigenous peoples in the Brazilian jungles, may be the first to go.

When people think about conservation, they think environment, animal or energy. But people conservation rarely comes to mind.

This little gem is about one of the last people skilled in the art of making first contact with indigenous tribes in South America and slowly introducing them to the outside world, or steering the outside world away from them.

Prime Directive for the Last Americans