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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest glade within in the Peruvian Amazon when he detected sounds drawing near through the thick woodland.

He became aware that he had been hemmed in, and stood still.

“One stood, aiming using an arrow,” he recalls. “Somehow he noticed of my presence and I began to run.”

He found himself confronting the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—residing in the modest village of Nueva Oceania—was practically a neighbor to these nomadic people, who shun engagement with strangers.

A recent study issued by a human rights group claims remain at least 196 of what it calls “remote communities” remaining globally. This tribe is thought to be the biggest. It states half of these communities might be eliminated over the coming ten years unless authorities fail to take further actions to defend them.

It argues the most significant dangers are from timber harvesting, digging or drilling for crude. Uncontacted groups are extremely vulnerable to ordinary illness—therefore, the study says a threat is posed by exposure with evangelical missionaries and online personalities in pursuit of clicks.

Lately, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing community of seven or eight clans, located high on the shores of the Tauhamanu River deep within the of Peru rainforest, a ten-hour journey from the closest settlement by watercraft.

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

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the sound of heavy equipment can be heard continuously, and the tribe members are observing their forest disturbed and ruined.

Within the village, residents state they are divided. They dread the tribal weapons but they also have profound regard for their “relatives” dwelling in the woodland and want to protect them.

“Allow them to live according to their traditions, we are unable to modify their culture. That's why we maintain our separation,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of conflict and the likelihood that timber workers might introduce the community to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

During a visit in the settlement, the group made themselves known again. A young mother, a woman with a young girl, was in the jungle gathering fruit when she detected them.

“There were cries, shouts from people, numerous of them. As if there was a large gathering calling out,” she told us.

That was the first time she had met the Mashco Piro and she escaped. An hour later, her mind was persistently racing from fear.

“Because there are deforestation crews and operations cutting down the forest they're running away, possibly out of fear and they arrive near us,” she stated. “We don't know how they will behave to us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

In 2022, two loggers were assaulted by the tribe while fishing. A single person was hit by an bow to the gut. He recovered, but the other person was located deceased after several days with several arrow wounds in his body.

Authorities in Peru maintains a policy of non-contact with secluded communities, rendering it forbidden to commence encounters with them.

This approach originated in the neighboring country after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who observed that initial exposure with isolated people could lead to entire communities being eliminated by illness, hardship and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau community in the country came into contact with the broader society, 50% of their population succumbed within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe faced the identical outcome.

“Remote tribes are highly susceptible—from a disease perspective, any interaction may introduce illnesses, and including the most common illnesses might wipe them out,” states an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any exposure or interference may be highly damaging to their existence and survival as a society.”

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