🔗 Share this article

A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest open space within in the of Peru Amazon when he detected sounds drawing near through the lush woodland.

He realized that he stood encircled, and stood still.

“One stood, aiming with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “And somehow he detected that I was present and I began to flee.”

He found himself confronting the Mashco Piro tribe. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the modest settlement of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbor to these nomadic people, who reject engagement with strangers.

A recent document from a advocacy group states remain a minimum of 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” remaining worldwide. The group is believed to be the largest. The report claims half of these groups could be decimated within ten years unless authorities neglect to implement further actions to defend them.

The report asserts the biggest risks stem from deforestation, digging or drilling for crude. Isolated tribes are exceptionally vulnerable to basic disease—consequently, it notes a danger is posed by interaction with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for clicks.

Lately, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to residents.

The village is a fishing hamlet of several clans, perched atop on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, 10 hours from the most accessible town by watercraft.

The territory is not classified as a protected reserve for remote communities, and logging companies work here.

According to Tomas that, on occasion, the noise of heavy equipment can be detected day and night, and the tribe members are witnessing their jungle damaged and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, residents report they are conflicted. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they hold strong admiration for their “brothers” dwelling in the jungle and want to defend them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we are unable to change their traditions. That's why we keep our separation,” says Tomas.

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

During a visit in the community, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. A young mother, a young mother with a young child, was in the forest picking food when she noticed them.

“We detected calls, shouts from others, a large number of them. Like there were a large gathering yelling,” she informed us.

This marked the first instance she had met the group and she escaped. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was persistently racing from terror.

“Because operate timber workers and companies cutting down the forest they're running away, possibly out of fear and they arrive in proximity to us,” she stated. “It is unclear how they will behave to us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

In 2022, two loggers were assaulted by the Mashco Piro while angling. One was hit by an bow to the stomach. He lived, but the second individual was located dead after several days with multiple puncture marks in his frame.

The administration maintains a policy of avoiding interaction with isolated people, establishing it as forbidden to initiate contact with them.

The strategy originated in Brazil following many years of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who observed that early interaction with remote tribes resulted to entire communities being decimated by disease, destitution and starvation.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in the country made initial contact with the outside world, half of their people succumbed within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua tribe faced the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very at risk—from a disease perspective, any interaction could spread sicknesses, and even the basic infections could decimate them,” says a representative from a tribal support group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or intrusion may be extremely detrimental to their way of life and survival as a society.”

For the neighbours of {