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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small open space deep in the Peruvian rainforest when he noticed footsteps approaching through the lush jungle.

It dawned on him that he stood hemmed in, and froze.

“One was standing, directing with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he became aware I was here and I commenced to escape.”

He found himself face to face the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—dwelling in the small community of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbour to these nomadic tribe, who avoid interaction with foreigners.

A new report by a human rights organization states there are a minimum of 196 termed “isolated tribes” left in the world. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the largest. The report states half of these groups might be decimated within ten years should administrations fail to take additional actions to defend them.

The report asserts the biggest threats stem from logging, extraction or exploration for oil. Uncontacted groups are extremely susceptible to common disease—therefore, the study notes a threat is presented by interaction with proselytizers and social media influencers seeking clicks.

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

Nueva Oceania is a angling village of a handful of households, perched high on the shores of the Tauhamanu waterway deep within the of Peru rainforest, half a day from the nearest village by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a safeguarded reserve for remote communities, and timber firms operate here.

Tomas reports that, at times, the racket of heavy equipment can be heard day and night, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their forest damaged and destroyed.

Among the locals, residents state they are divided. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess strong respect for their “relatives” who live in the forest and desire to defend them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we are unable to alter their way of life. That's why we preserve our distance,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the community's way of life, the risk of conflict and the chance that timber workers might introduce the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no defense to.

At the time in the community, the tribe made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a two-year-old girl, was in the jungle gathering food when she detected them.

“There were shouting, sounds from others, numerous of them. As if there were a whole group yelling,” she shared with us.

That was the initial occasion she had encountered the tribe and she ran. An hour later, her head was continually throbbing from fear.

“As exist deforestation crews and firms destroying the forest they are escaping, possibly out of fear and they come in proximity to us,” she stated. “It is unclear how they might react to us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

In 2022, two loggers were assaulted by the group while catching fish. One man was struck by an bow to the stomach. He survived, but the other person was found deceased after several days with multiple puncture marks in his body.

The Peruvian government has a policy of avoiding interaction with isolated people, making it forbidden to initiate interactions with them.

This approach was first adopted in the neighboring country after decades of advocacy by community representatives, who observed that first interaction with remote tribes could lead to whole populations being wiped out by illness, poverty and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in Peru came into contact with the outside world, half of their people succumbed within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very at risk—in terms of health, any contact could introduce sicknesses, and even the basic infections might wipe them out,” explains a representative from a local advocacy organization. “Culturally too, any interaction or interference may be very harmful to their existence and survival as a group.”

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