Cultural Extinction?

News is going around about aerial photography a previously "uncontacted" tribe in Brazil.
Essentially, they are people who still live in huts and carry spears, theoretically because no one has told them to do otherwise. The people live on land that is supposed to be protected from loggers, and the primary motivation of the photographers was to show people what could be lost if loggers destroyed the forests that these people depend upon for survival.
Then, the article becomes problematic:

Stephen Corry, the director of the group - which supports tribal people around the world - said such tribes would "soon be made extinct" if their land was not protected.

Extinct? Extinction seems like language better reserved for species than for a particular group of people engaged in a different culture. It doesn't sound as if he is particularly concerned that individual human lives might be at stake. Rather, he's concerned that a particular tribal life is at stake.
What I also find disturbing is that there seems to be some kind of real life application of Star Trek's Prime Directive going on here, as if we have some kind of responsibility to never interfere with another civilization and is these people are better off never coming into contact with the rest of the world.
For somewhat obvious reasons, a true Christian can never accept that no attempts should ever be made to contact these people at all (their souls alone make a reasonable, measured attempt at contact worthwhile).

It also seems to me a bit snobbish to let them live in ignorance of the rest of us. "No, no, man who lives in a hut and hunts with a spear, you shouldn't have access to our sanitation technology, medical treatments, or food preparation techniques...you wouldn't really like that it at all if we reduced your child mortality rate. You're much better living the way you are, and we'll just fly over head in our great metal birds and take pictures of you dancing about naked and then send those pictures to everyone in the world so they can gawk at you."

Comments

[Matt]

My hunch is that we (I was offended by this too) are upset about the "extinction" reference is due to our deep seated theology of the body beliefs. Saying that a group of people will become extinct dehumanizes them, and lowers them to the status of animals.

I personally don't think the author was referring to their culture, but rather, he was literally referring to their lives. This is the kind of thinking and language which is consistent with the "culture of death".

These native tribes deserve respect as people. But they also deserve to hear the Gospel. It is too bad that our evangelization efforts aren't what they were in the days of the North American Martyrs. They endured torture and death at the hands of native peoples for the sake of the Gospel. I think it is fair to say that you and I only know one or two individuals (now Dominican novices) who would even think about signing up for that.

[PeterTerp]

I just read a news piece that the "lost tribe" photographed in the article mentioned above was not exactly all that "lost."
Apparently, they are a known lost tribe that is already being protected. The photographer decided to disturb them just to get them riled up so he could take the picture and alert the world to the plight of other tribes that are really lost.
In other words, he broke the prime directive in order to show everyone why we shouldn't break the prime directive.
http://tinyurl.com/4sky7g