🔗 Share this article

Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest glade far in the of Peru jungle when he heard movements coming closer through the thick woodland.

He became aware that he stood surrounded, and halted.

“A single individual stood, directing with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Somehow he noticed I was here and I started to run.”

He found himself confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—served as practically a neighbor to these wandering tribe, who avoid contact with outsiders.

A recent study issued by a rights organization claims remain at least 196 termed “uncontacted groups” in existence in the world. The group is considered to be the largest. It claims a significant portion of these groups might be decimated over the coming ten years if governments neglect to implement more to protect them.

The report asserts the most significant dangers stem from deforestation, extraction or operations for petroleum. Uncontacted groups are highly susceptible to basic sickness—consequently, the study states a danger is caused by exposure with religious missionaries and digital content creators looking for attention.

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

Nueva Oceania is a fishing hamlet of seven or eight clans, sitting high on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the closest settlement by canoe.

The territory is not recognised as a protected zone for isolated tribes, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the noise of heavy equipment can be heard around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their jungle disrupted and devastated.

Among the locals, inhabitants report they are divided. They dread the tribal weapons but they hold strong respect for their “relatives” residing in the forest and wish to protect them.

“Let them live in their own way, we can't modify their traditions. That's why we preserve our distance,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the danger of conflict and the chance that loggers might subject the Mashco Piro to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

During a visit in the settlement, the tribe appeared again. Letitia, a young mother with a two-year-old child, was in the woodland picking fruit when she heard them.

“We heard shouting, sounds from individuals, a large number of them. As if it was a crowd calling out,” she told us.

It was the first instance she had encountered the tribe and she ran. Subsequently, her thoughts was persistently pounding from anxiety.

“Because there are loggers and companies clearing the woodland they are escaping, possibly out of fear and they come in proximity to us,” she said. “We don't know what their response may be with us. That is the thing that scares me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were assaulted by the Mashco Piro while angling. One man was wounded by an bow to the gut. He survived, but the other person was found lifeless after several days with several arrow wounds in his physique.

Authorities in Peru maintains a policy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, establishing it as illegal to start interactions with them.

The policy began in the neighboring country after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who saw that first exposure with secluded communities lead to entire communities being decimated by sickness, destitution and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in Peru came into contact with the broader society, a significant portion of their community died within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the similar destiny.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are highly at risk—in terms of health, any interaction may transmit illnesses, and even the simplest ones might eliminate them,” states a representative from a tribal support group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or disruption could be very harmful to their existence and survival as a group.”

For local residents of {