🔗 Share this article

A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest open space deep in the of Peru rainforest when he detected movements approaching through the thick forest.

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

“A single individual stood, aiming with an arrow,” he states. “Somehow he became aware of my presence and I began to run.”

He had come confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—who lives in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—had been practically a local to these nomadic tribe, who shun contact with strangers.

A new study by a rights organization indicates remain a minimum of 196 termed “uncontacted groups” in existence worldwide. The group is considered to be the biggest. The report claims 50% of these communities could be eliminated in the next decade unless authorities fail to take more to protect them.

It argues the greatest dangers are from deforestation, extraction or operations for oil. Uncontacted groups are highly vulnerable to ordinary illness—consequently, the report says a threat is presented by exposure with proselytizers and online personalities in pursuit of engagement.

In recent times, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, based on accounts from locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing community of several families, located atop on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the of Peru Amazon, 10 hours from the nearest town by watercraft.

The area is not recognised as a protected zone for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations function here.

Tomas reports that, at times, the noise of logging machinery can be noticed continuously, and the tribe members are witnessing their woodland disturbed and devastated.

Within the village, people say they are conflicted. They fear the tribal weapons but they also have strong admiration for their “relatives” who live in the woodland and wish to protect them.

“Allow them to live according to their traditions, we can't modify their traditions. This is why we preserve our distance,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of violence and the likelihood that loggers might expose the community to sicknesses they have no resistance to.

While we were in the village, the group made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a woman with a young daughter, was in the jungle collecting fruit when she heard them.

“There were cries, shouts from individuals, many of them. Like there were a crowd yelling,” she told us.

That was the initial occasion she had come across the tribe and she fled. Subsequently, her head was still pounding from anxiety.

“As exist timber workers and companies destroying the forest they're running away, maybe out of fear and they come close to us,” she said. “It is unclear how they might react to us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

Two years ago, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One man was wounded by an arrow to the gut. He survived, but the second individual was discovered deceased after several days with nine puncture marks in his frame.

The Peruvian government maintains a approach of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, establishing it as forbidden to start contact with them.

The policy began in Brazil following many years of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who saw that initial interaction with isolated people lead to entire communities being eliminated by illness, poverty and hunger.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in Peru came into contact with the outside world, half of their population died within a few years. A decade later, the Muruhanua people suffered the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are highly at risk—from a disease perspective, any exposure might spread sicknesses, and even the simplest ones might eliminate them,” explains an advocate from a local advocacy organization. “From a societal perspective, any contact or interference can be highly damaging to their life and well-being as a group.”

For the neighbours of {