Remote tribe in Amazon teams up with Google

A remote tribe in the Amazon is using Google technology to protect its land from illegal miners and loggers.

The Surui Tribe is using video cameras, GPS devices and the Internet to track encroachments on their 600,000-acre reservation. The information will be part of the Google Earth program.

"Since the Surui and other indigenous people were given training tools by Google, our land has received more visibility," Chief Almir Surui told The San Francisco Chronicle in an e-mail. "All the information is shedding light on the invasion of our land ... and giving our people the responsibility for their own future."

The tribe came into contact with outsiders in 1969. Though the Brazilian government established a reservation, illegal mining and logging remains a problem.

Get the Story:
Google breaks Amazon tribe's isolation (The San Francisco Chronicle 7/3)

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