Isolated Tribe Members in Brazil Spotted in Drone Footage

In the sprawling greenery of the Brazilian Amazon, near the border with Peru, a group of people -- small in the distance -- walk through a clearing.

These are isolated tribe members, and little do they know, they're being watched -- drone footage revealing their existence to the world.

The video -- recorded in 2017, but published this week -- is just one element of the material that Brazil's National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) collected during missions to the Javari Valley.

The hard-to-access area of southwestern Amazonas state is home to the majority of the more than 100 confirmed isolated tribes in the vast South American nation.

FUNAI has made contact with eight in the Javari Valley -- but says that there are 11 more, detected via signs including a huge hut, handmade axes and canoes crafted out of palm tree trunks.

To get to the region, FUNAI officials and police had to cover 180 kilometers (110 miles) by river and dirt road, and then another 120 kilometers on foot through the jungle, the agency said in a statement.

The project, which aims to protect isolated tribes, relied on the in-depth local knowledge of the Kanamari tribe.

During the mission, they also encountered two groups of poachers, forcing them to release wild animals.