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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small open space deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he heard movements drawing near through the thick woodland.

He realized he was encircled, and stood still.

“One was standing, directing with an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Somehow he noticed that I was present and I started to escape.”

He had come face to face the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbor to these wandering people, who reject contact with outsiders.

A new report from a human rights organization claims remain at least 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” in existence in the world. The group is believed to be the most numerous. The study says half of these communities might be decimated in the next decade unless authorities don't do more measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the most significant dangers are from timber harvesting, extraction or exploration for petroleum. Isolated tribes are extremely at risk to common sickness—consequently, it states a danger is caused by interaction with religious missionaries and online personalities seeking clicks.

Lately, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to inhabitants.

This settlement is a angling village of several households, perched high on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the of Peru jungle, a ten-hour journey from the most accessible settlement by canoe.

The area is not recognised as a safeguarded reserve for uncontacted groups, and timber firms function here.

Tomas says that, sometimes, the sound of logging machinery can be noticed day and night, and the tribe members are observing their jungle disturbed and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants state they are divided. They dread the projectiles but they hold deep regard for their “brothers” dwelling in the forest and desire to defend them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we can't alter their traditions. For this reason we preserve our separation,” states Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the community's way of life, the threat of conflict and the chance that deforestation crews might subject the community to illnesses they have no resistance to.

While we were in the settlement, the Mashco Piro appeared again. Letitia, a woman with a young girl, was in the forest picking food when she heard them.

“We heard cries, sounds from others, numerous of them. Like it was a large gathering yelling,” she informed us.

This marked the first instance she had come across the tribe and she fled. An hour later, her head was persistently racing from fear.

“Because there are deforestation crews and operations destroying the woodland they are fleeing, perhaps due to terror and they end up near us,” she said. “We are uncertain what their response may be towards us. This is what scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were assaulted by the Mashco Piro while angling. One man was hit by an arrow to the stomach. He survived, but the other person was discovered deceased subsequently with several injuries in his physique.

Authorities in Peru has a strategy of non-contact with isolated people, establishing it as prohibited to initiate encounters with them.

This approach was first adopted in Brazil after decades of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who observed that early contact with remote tribes resulted to entire communities being decimated by illness, poverty and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in Peru came into contact with the broader society, 50% of their community died within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely susceptible—from a disease perspective, any interaction may introduce diseases, and even the basic infections may eliminate them,” explains an advocate from a tribal support group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or intrusion could be highly damaging to their existence and well-being as a group.”

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