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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small glade within in the Peruvian Amazon when he heard movements approaching through the lush forest.

It dawned on him that he stood encircled, and froze.

“One person was standing, pointing using an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Somehow he noticed I was here and I started to flee.”

He ended up confronting the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as almost a neighbor to these wandering tribe, who shun interaction with strangers.

A recent document issued by a advocacy organisation indicates exist at least 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” in existence globally. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the biggest. The study claims a significant portion of these communities might be decimated in the next decade unless authorities fail to take more actions to defend them.

It argues the most significant threats are from deforestation, extraction or drilling for crude. Remote communities are highly susceptible to ordinary disease—therefore, the study notes a danger is posed by exposure with proselytizers and digital content creators looking for attention.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, according to inhabitants.

The village is a angling village of seven or eight clans, located elevated on the edges of the local river in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the closest settlement by boat.

The territory is not designated as a protected reserve for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations operate here.

Tomas says that, at times, the sound of heavy equipment can be heard continuously, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their woodland damaged and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants state they are torn. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they hold strong regard for their “relatives” dwelling in the woodland and desire to protect them.

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

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the danger of aggression and the likelihood that loggers might introduce the community to diseases they have no defense to.

During a visit in the community, the group made themselves known again. Letitia, a resident with a young child, was in the jungle collecting produce when she noticed them.

“We heard cries, shouts from others, numerous of them. As if there were a large gathering yelling,” she shared with us.

This marked the first instance she had encountered the group and she ran. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was still pounding from anxiety.

“As exist loggers and operations cutting down the woodland they are escaping, maybe out of fear and they end up near us,” she explained. “We don't know how they might react with us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

Two years ago, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the tribe while catching fish. One man was wounded by an projectile to the gut. He recovered, but the second individual was discovered deceased days later with nine puncture marks in his physique.

The Peruvian government maintains a strategy of no engagement with secluded communities, rendering it forbidden to commence interactions with them.

The strategy began in Brazil following many years of advocacy by tribal advocacy organizations, who saw that initial contact with isolated people resulted to entire communities being decimated by disease, poverty and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the broader society, half of their population died within a few years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people faced the similar destiny.

“Secluded communities are very susceptible—epidemiologically, any contact may transmit sicknesses, and even the simplest ones could eliminate them,” explains a representative from a local advocacy organization. “Culturally too, any exposure or disruption can be highly damaging to their existence and health as a society.”

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