Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, the indigenous Surui tribe made its first contact with the modern world barely four decades ago; electricity came to their tribal lands just last year.

Yet the tattooed tribespeople, some still living in thatched roof huts, have caught on fast to the power of the Internet: They're using it to call attention to the decline of their precious rain forest and, along with it, their unique culture.

Working with the Amazon Conservation Team, a U.S.-based environmental group, the tribe of about 1,200 in the western state of Rondonia, Brazil, is using Google Earth, the Internet giant's digital mapping technology, to mark their territory, which is besieged by illegal logging and other forces of development.

In 2006, the Surui began mapping their region -- sites of harvestable plants and trees, wildlife breeding areas and bow- and-arrow skirmishes they've had with tribal enemies.

The tribal chief, 33-year-old Almir Naramayoga Surui -- the first Surui to attend university -- traveled in May 2007 to Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, California, to solicit help from the company.

Wearing the traditional Surui headdress of brilliant parrot feathers, Almir told his techie audience through an interpreter: ``We don't want to use Google technology just to denounce what's happening but to discuss solutions for everybody who lives on this planet.''

Google agreed to work with satellite data providers to create high-resolution images of the tribe's area. Google Earth Outreach, a philanthropic arm of the company that uses mapping tools to document conservation and human-rights issues, sent trainers earlier this summer to the Amazon to school the Surui in the ways of Google Earth, blogs, YouTube and other Internet tools.

Cultural Transformation

``This is about going from the Stone Age to the Internet age,'' Google Earth Outreach manager Rebecca Moore told me following the sessions. When the Surui's data is ready to go online, it will be ``unlike any layer seen before Google Earth or Maps.''

The tribe is now creating ``layers'' of data that will be visible to anyone with Internet access. The hope is that dramatic imagery showing the precipitous decline of rain forest will garner worldwide attention -- and put an end to illegal logging.

Encouragingly, there is some indication that deforestation in the Amazon is stabilizing. Last year, the region lost 11,224 square kilometers (4,334 square miles), its smallest decline in more than 15 years. A comparable loss is expected for 2008.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva tightened rules against illegal logging in December, and there are reports of crackdowns by federal police in recent weeks on Surui lands.

Fast Learners

Vasco van Roosmalen, director of the Amazon Conservation Team's Brazil program, says the Surui are fast learners. ``They are able to very quickly pick up these new technologies and concepts, and integrate them into their traditional world views.''

Can tradition survive the Surui's growing comfort with the Internet? One Google trainer, writing on the Google Earth and Maps blog, said he felt at once ``proud and sad'' as he watched trainees with no computer experience become Internet ``addicts'' in a single day.

The Surui's new images, not yet online, are stunning. One of the most important events to be mapped is the first contact, the moment on Sept. 7, 1969, when the Surui met ``civilization'' during construction of the 2,000-mile Trans-Amazon Highway.

One immediate side benefit to the project is that younger tribe members are developing a bigger interest in their own culture.

``One of the very important goals is not only to tell the story to the outside world but also to the young people about their own culture and how precious and fragile it is,'' Moore says.

YouTube Generation

The Surui youth are interviewing elders who recalled their 1969 introduction to the modern world. In the process, they are learning about, and preserving, their own history through the creation of Web pages and Youtube.com videos.

Experts say some 200 distinct tribes have been wiped out throughout the Amazon, so there's no overstating the gravity of situation.

The Surui's efforts already have inspired similar projects in the region. The Amazon Conservation Team is now helping indigenous peoples in Suriname and Colombia map their lands as well. With hundreds of tribes covering about a quarter of the Amazon, it could be just the beginning.

The Surui hope to have their first maps and other Web pages publicly available by the end of the year. To learn more or donate to the cause, see http://www.amazonteam.org.

(Mike Di Paola writes about preservation and the environment for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Mike Di Paola at mdipaola@nyc.rr.com.

Last Updated: September 2, 2008 00:01 EDT