Amazon Peoples › Nomadic, Semi-Nomadic & Isolated Peoples

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This Page Is Not a Profile

The Yuri and Passé are Indigenous peoples who live in voluntary isolation in the Colombian Amazon. They are associated with territories along the Colombia-Peru-Brazil border, including areas adjacent to the Amacayacu National Natural Park.

Their precise location, population, and way of life are not publicly documented by design. Colombian authorities and international human rights frameworks maintain this deliberate uncertainty as a protective measure.

This page exists to acknowledge their right to exist — not to invite curiosity about how to reach them, find them, photograph them, or study them.

Dulce Amazónica's Position

Dulce Amazónica does not promote:

  • Contact with isolated peoples
  • Visits to territories where isolated peoples are known or suspected to live
  • Photography of isolated peoples
  • Missionary or evangelical access to isolated peoples
  • Tourism framed around isolated peoples
  • Curiosity-driven expeditions toward their territories

The right of the Yuri and Passé to remain in isolation is a right to life. History has demonstrated this clearly: peoples who did not choose contact have faced catastrophic mortality from introduced disease, displacement, and cultural rupture. The Nukak experience — documented, photographed, and still unresolved — is the Yuri and Passé's recent history if non-contact is not maintained.

Non-contact is not a failure of connection. It is the correct ethical, legal, and humanitarian position.

Why They Are in Isolation

Voluntary isolation is not primitive. It is a decision — made over time, often in direct response to the violence and devastation that contact with the outside world has brought to related peoples.

The Yuri and Passé are believed to have maintained their current isolation in part because they witnessed what happened to others. Their choice is informed. It should be respected.

The Colombian Constitutional Court, in Ruling SU-123 of 2018, affirmed the fundamental rights of peoples in voluntary isolation, including their right to remain in isolation and their right to territory free from intrusion. This is not a soft guideline. It is a legally binding protection.

What Protection Actually Requires

Territorial protection for isolated peoples means:

  • Enforced exclusion zones that prevent settler incursion
  • Legal prosecution of missionary groups and others who attempt contact
  • Coordination between Colombia, Peru, and Brazil on cross-border territories
  • Resource extraction bans within or adjacent to known territories
  • State monitoring without state intrusion

The gap between these requirements and current enforcement is significant. Advocacy for isolated peoples must focus on this gap — not on building bridges to their communities, but on keeping their territories intact.

The Yuri and Passé exist. That is what we know. That is enough. The rest belongs to them.

Learn Without Seeking to Reach

Understanding the rights and realities of isolated peoples does not require proximity to them.