🔗 Share this article

A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a tiny clearing within in the of Peru rainforest when he detected footsteps coming closer through the lush forest.

He realized that he had been surrounded, and stood still.

“One positioned, pointing using an projectile,” he states. “And somehow he detected that I was present and I began to flee.”

He found himself confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the small village of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a neighbour to these itinerant people, who shun engagement with foreigners.

A recent report from a human rights organization claims exist no fewer than 196 described as “remote communities” in existence worldwide. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the biggest. The report states a significant portion of these tribes might be wiped out within ten years if governments neglect to implement further to protect them.

It claims the greatest threats are from timber harvesting, mining or drilling for crude. Uncontacted groups are highly at risk to basic sickness—as such, the report states a risk is caused by exposure with religious missionaries and digital content creators seeking attention.

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

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's hamlet of seven or eight households, perched elevated on the banks of the local river deep within the Peruvian rainforest, 10 hours from the closest town by boat.

This region is not classified as a safeguarded area for remote communities, and timber firms function here.

According to Tomas that, on occasion, the racket of heavy equipment can be detected day and night, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their jungle disturbed and devastated.

Among the locals, people state they are conflicted. They dread the Mashco Piro's arrows but they hold profound admiration for their “brothers” dwelling in the forest and want to protect them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we are unable to alter their way of life. This is why we maintain our space,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the community's way of life, the danger of violence and the possibility that loggers might subject the tribe to illnesses they have no defense to.

While we were in the settlement, the Mashco Piro made their presence felt again. A young mother, a young mother with a two-year-old daughter, was in the forest gathering food when she noticed them.

“We detected cries, sounds from people, many of them. As though there were a whole group shouting,” she informed us.

This marked the first time she had met the Mashco Piro and she escaped. An hour later, her thoughts was persistently racing from fear.

“As exist timber workers and companies cutting down the woodland they are escaping, possibly because of dread and they arrive close to us,” she said. “We are uncertain how they might react to us. That's what scares me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the group while fishing. One was wounded by an projectile to the stomach. He survived, but the other person was located deceased days later with several puncture marks in his body.

The Peruvian government follows a strategy of no engagement with isolated people, establishing it as illegal to initiate encounters with them.

The strategy began in Brazil following many years of lobbying by tribal advocacy organizations, who saw that initial exposure with remote tribes resulted to whole populations being eliminated by disease, hardship and hunger.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in Peru made initial contact with the world outside, half of their population died within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the same fate.

“Secluded communities are extremely susceptible—epidemiologically, any interaction may transmit illnesses, and even the simplest ones could wipe them out,” states a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any exposure or interference can be highly damaging to their existence and well-being as a community.”

For those living nearby of {