🔗 Share this article

A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small glade deep in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard footsteps coming closer through the dense jungle.

It dawned on him he was hemmed in, and halted.

“One stood, aiming with an bow and arrow,” he states. “Unexpectedly he noticed of my presence and I started to escape.”

He found himself confronting the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the small village of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbour to these nomadic individuals, who shun interaction with foreigners.

A new document by a human rights organisation states remain a minimum of 196 termed “uncontacted groups” left worldwide. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the largest. The report claims 50% of these tribes may be decimated in the next decade unless authorities don't do more measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the biggest risks come from logging, extraction or drilling for oil. Isolated tribes are extremely at risk to ordinary disease—therefore, it notes a threat is caused by interaction with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers seeking attention.

Recently, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, as reported by locals.

Nueva Oceania is a angling community of a handful of clans, perched elevated on the shores of the local river deep within the of Peru jungle, half a day from the nearest town by boat.

The area is not designated as a safeguarded reserve for isolated tribes, and timber firms work here.

According to Tomas that, at times, the noise of industrial tools can be noticed around the clock, and the community are observing their forest damaged and destroyed.

Within the village, people say they are conflicted. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also possess deep admiration for their “kin” residing in the woodland and desire to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we must not modify their culture. For this reason we maintain our distance,” states Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the harm to the tribe's survival, the threat of violence and the chance that timber workers might subject the community to illnesses they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the settlement, the group made their presence felt again. A young mother, a young mother with a toddler child, was in the forest picking fruit when she heard them.

“We detected calls, sounds from individuals, many of them. As if there was a large gathering calling out,” she shared with us.

It was the first time she had met the group and she fled. An hour later, her mind was still racing from anxiety.

“Since operate timber workers and operations destroying the woodland they are escaping, maybe because of dread and they end up close to us,” she stated. “We are uncertain how they will behave with us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

Two years ago, two loggers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while angling. A single person was struck by an arrow to the stomach. He recovered, but the other person was discovered deceased after several days with nine injuries in his physique.

The Peruvian government follows a policy of no engagement with secluded communities, making it prohibited to initiate contact with them.

The policy originated in the neighboring country after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who noted that first contact with secluded communities resulted to entire communities being eliminated by sickness, hardship and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country first encountered with the broader society, half of their people perished within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the similar destiny.

“Remote tribes are extremely vulnerable—from a disease perspective, any interaction may transmit illnesses, and even the basic infections could wipe them out,” says a representative from a tribal support group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or disruption could be highly damaging to their existence and survival as a community.”

For the neighbours of {