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Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest glade deep in the of Peru Amazon when he heard movements coming closer through the thick woodland.

He became aware he was surrounded, and froze.

“One was standing, pointing with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Somehow he noticed of my presence and I began to run.”

He ended up confronting the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—was practically a neighbor to these itinerant individuals, who reject contact with foreigners.

A recent study from a advocacy group indicates remain a minimum of 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” in existence globally. This tribe is believed to be the most numerous. The study claims half of these communities may be decimated within ten years should administrations neglect to implement further measures to safeguard them.

It claims the most significant dangers are from logging, extraction or drilling for oil. Remote communities are extremely susceptible to basic sickness—consequently, the study notes a danger is caused by exposure with proselytizers and online personalities seeking clicks.

Recently, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, as reported by residents.

Nueva Oceania is a angling village of a handful of families, located high on the shores of the local river in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the nearest town by boat.

The territory is not recognised as a safeguarded area for uncontacted groups, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas says that, at times, the noise of industrial tools can be noticed day and night, and the tribe members are observing their forest damaged and devastated.

Within the village, inhabitants say they are conflicted. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have profound admiration for their “kin” residing in the woodland and want to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live according to their traditions, we are unable to alter their way of life. For this reason we maintain our distance,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the threat of conflict and the possibility that loggers might expose the community to illnesses they have no defense to.

During a visit in the community, the tribe made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a woman with a young girl, was in the woodland gathering food when she noticed them.

“We detected cries, sounds from others, many of them. Like it was a large gathering yelling,” she told us.

It was the first time she had met the Mashco Piro and she fled. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was continually throbbing from fear.

“Because there are timber workers and firms clearing the woodland they are fleeing, perhaps out of fear and they arrive close to us,” she said. “We don't know what their response may be with us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

Recently, two loggers were attacked by the tribe while angling. A single person was struck by an bow to the stomach. He survived, but the second individual was discovered dead days later with nine puncture marks in his body.

The administration has a approach of no engagement with remote tribes, establishing it as forbidden to start encounters with them.

This approach was first adopted in Brazil following many years of campaigning by community representatives, who observed that initial exposure with secluded communities could lead to entire communities being eliminated by sickness, destitution and starvation.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau community in Peru made initial contact with the outside world, a significant portion of their community died within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are highly susceptible—in terms of health, any exposure could transmit sicknesses, and even the most common illnesses may wipe them out,” explains an advocate from a tribal support group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or disruption can be very harmful to their way of life and health as a community.”

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