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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny open space within in the of Peru rainforest when he detected sounds drawing near through the thick woodland.

He became aware he was hemmed in, and froze.

“A single individual was standing, aiming with an projectile,” he remembers. “Somehow he became aware I was here and I commenced to run.”

He ended up confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the small community of Nueva Oceania—had been virtually a neighbor to these nomadic individuals, who reject interaction with strangers.

A new study by a rights organisation indicates exist no fewer than 196 termed “isolated tribes” remaining worldwide. The group is considered to be the largest. It says a significant portion of these groups may be eliminated within ten years unless authorities neglect to implement more measures to safeguard them.

It claims the greatest dangers come from timber harvesting, extraction or drilling for crude. Remote communities are extremely at risk to ordinary sickness—consequently, it states a risk is posed by contact with evangelical missionaries and online personalities seeking engagement.

Lately, members of the tribe have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, according to locals.

The village is a fishermen's hamlet of several households, sitting elevated on the edges of the local river deep within the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the nearest town by canoe.

This region is not designated as a protected area for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations function here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the sound of logging machinery can be heard continuously, and the community are seeing their jungle disrupted and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, residents say they are conflicted. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have profound regard for their “kin” dwelling in the forest and desire to defend them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we must not change their traditions. That's why we preserve our separation,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the community's way of life, the danger of violence and the possibility that loggers might introduce the community to illnesses they have no resistance to.

While we were in the village, the group made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a two-year-old child, was in the woodland picking fruit when she detected them.

“There were calls, shouts from others, many of them. Like there were a whole group calling out,” she informed us.

It was the first instance she had met the group and she fled. After sixty minutes, her head was still throbbing from fear.

“As exist deforestation crews and firms cutting down the forest they are escaping, perhaps because of dread and they arrive near us,” she said. “We don't know how they will behave towards us. This is what scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were attacked by the group while angling. One man was hit by an arrow to the abdomen. He lived, but the second individual was found lifeless subsequently with nine injuries in his physique.

Authorities in Peru maintains a strategy of no engagement with isolated people, establishing it as illegal to initiate interactions with them.

This approach began in Brazil following many years of advocacy by community representatives, who observed that early contact with secluded communities could lead to entire communities being wiped out by disease, poverty and hunger.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau people in the country first encountered with the broader society, half of their people died within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua community faced the similar destiny.

“Secluded communities are highly at risk—in terms of health, any contact could spread diseases, and even the basic infections may wipe them out,” explains a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or disruption may be very harmful to their life and survival as a society.”

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