Peru's state-run energy agency Perupetro recently said it would exclude areas where isolated communities live from an auction of oil and gas lots.

It was a sharp turnaround for Perupetro, which had previously cast doubt on the existence of remote jungle tribes.

Rights advocates applaud the move but said Peru must do more to prevent encroachment that threatens to expose tribes to deadly diseases. They say the government's plans fall short as nomadic tribes travel in and out of protected parks and enforcement is lax.

Contact with outsiders has historically been disastrous for Peru's Indians. More than half of the Murunahua tribe died of colds and other illnesses after they were contacted by development workers for the first time in 1996.

An aerial shot of the Murunahua nature reserve shows circular spots of downed trees that scar an otherwise lush, green canopy.

Corruption, inadequate policing, poor local cooperation and rampant rural poverty all encourage illegal logging, said INRENA, the agency charged with protecting Peru's resources.

The government insists it is doing its best.

"People say Peru isn't interested in taking care of the tribes ... but we are," said Ronald Ibarra, director of indigenous affairs at the ministry for social development.

Huertas spoke of the dangers to indigenous groups as she stood next to a river that loggers use to move fallen trunks from the jungle to a plant where they are collected, processed and shipped.

Once trees arrive at the yard, it is tough to know where they came from, hindering efforts to combat illegal logging.

A policeman patrolling a processing plant near Pucallpa said both kinds of wood move through the yard, a sprawling complex piled high with cut lumber and mud-covered tractors.

"Some of it's legal, some of it's illegal," he said, declining to give his name.

(China Daily via agencies July 22, 2008)