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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest glade within in the Peruvian jungle when he detected sounds coming closer through the thick jungle.

He realized he was hemmed in, and stood still.

“A single individual stood, directing with an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he detected of my presence and I began to escape.”

He had come encountering the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a local to these itinerant tribe, who reject engagement with foreigners.

A recent report by a human rights group claims exist at least 196 termed “uncontacted groups” remaining worldwide. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the most numerous. The report states half of these tribes may be wiped out in the next decade should administrations fail to take more actions to defend them.

It argues the greatest threats stem from deforestation, digging or operations for oil. Isolated tribes are exceptionally susceptible to common sickness—as such, the study notes a danger is caused by interaction with evangelical missionaries and online personalities looking for engagement.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to locals.

Nueva Oceania is a angling community of a handful of households, sitting atop on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the closest village by boat.

The area is not recognised as a safeguarded area for isolated tribes, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the racket of industrial tools can be noticed day and night, and the community are witnessing their forest disrupted and ruined.

Among the locals, residents report they are divided. They dread the tribal weapons but they also possess profound respect for their “kin” dwelling in the jungle and want to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live according to their traditions, we must not alter their traditions. For this reason we keep our distance,” states Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of conflict and the likelihood that timber workers might introduce the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

While we were in the community, the Mashco Piro appeared again. Letitia, a resident with a two-year-old girl, was in the jungle picking food when she detected them.

“There were calls, shouts from people, a large number of them. As though there were a whole group calling out,” she informed us.

This marked the first instance she had come across the tribe and she ran. After sixty minutes, her head was continually throbbing from fear.

“Since exist deforestation crews and operations destroying the forest they are fleeing, perhaps because of dread and they arrive near us,” she said. “We don't know what their response may be with us. That's what terrifies me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the group while catching fish. One man was wounded by an projectile to the gut. He survived, but the second individual was found deceased subsequently with several arrow wounds in his physique.

Authorities in Peru maintains a approach of non-contact with remote tribes, rendering it illegal to initiate encounters with them.

The policy was first adopted in Brazil after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who noted that first interaction with remote tribes resulted to entire communities being wiped out by sickness, poverty and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the world outside, half of their people perished within a short period. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people faced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely vulnerable—epidemiologically, any interaction may spread illnesses, and including the most common illnesses could decimate them,” says Issrail Aquisse from a local advocacy organization. “In cultural terms, any exposure or interference may be very harmful to their life and survival as a group.”

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