Missionaries accused of illegally giving gadgets to isolated Amazon tribe

Engraving: “Interior of Primaeval Forest on the Amazon” from the book The Naturalist on the River Amazons by Henry Walter Bates. Engraving courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library / Flickr. Public Domain. Article by Andrew Paul. Popular Science – July 28, 2025.

Brazilian laws prohibit outsiders from contacting remote Indigenous tribes in the Amazon, but that hasn’t deterred some Christian missionaries. National authorities and watchdog groups discovered plastic gadgets containing prerecorded religious messages in the Amazon’s Javari valley near the Brazil-Peru border. First reported by The Guardian and Brazilian newspaper O Globo, the secretive project has alleged ties to multiple international evangelical organizations. […]

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