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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny clearing deep in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard movements coming closer through the thick forest.

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

“One stood, pointing using an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “And somehow he noticed I was here and I began to flee.”

He had come confronting the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—residing in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—had been practically a neighbour to these itinerant people, who avoid contact with foreigners.

A new report by a rights group states there are no fewer than 196 termed “isolated tribes” in existence in the world. This tribe is considered to be the largest. The study states 50% of these tribes might be eliminated over the coming ten years if governments fail to take more measures to safeguard them.

It claims the greatest threats come from logging, digging or operations for crude. Remote communities are highly at risk to basic illness—consequently, the report says a threat is presented by exposure with religious missionaries and online personalities looking for clicks.

Recently, members of the tribe have been venturing to Nueva Oceania more and more, based on accounts from residents.

This settlement is a angling village of seven or eight households, perched atop on the edges of the local river in the heart of the of Peru Amazon, half a day from the most accessible settlement by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a preserved reserve for uncontacted groups, and logging companies operate here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the sound of heavy equipment can be detected around the clock, and the tribe members are observing their jungle disrupted and destroyed.

Within the village, residents state they are torn. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess strong respect for their “kin” residing in the jungle and want to defend them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we must not alter their traditions. For this reason we keep our space,” states Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the community's way of life, the risk of aggression and the possibility that loggers might subject the community to diseases they have no defense to.

While we were in the village, the group appeared again. Letitia, a young mother with a young daughter, was in the woodland gathering food when she noticed them.

“There were shouting, cries from people, numerous of them. As though there were a large gathering calling out,” she informed us.

It was the first instance she had met the Mashco Piro and she fled. Subsequently, her head was still throbbing from terror.

“As exist loggers and operations destroying the jungle they're running away, possibly because of dread and they arrive near us,” she explained. “We are uncertain what their response may be to us. This is what scares me.”

In 2022, two individuals were attacked by the group while fishing. A single person was struck by an bow to the stomach. He recovered, but the other man was found deceased subsequently with multiple arrow wounds in his body.

The administration maintains a policy of no engagement with isolated people, making it forbidden to start encounters with them.

The policy began in the neighboring country after decades of advocacy by tribal advocacy organizations, who observed that first contact with remote tribes resulted to whole populations being decimated by illness, destitution and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau community in Peru made initial contact with the outside world, 50% of their community perished within a short period. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe faced the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely vulnerable—epidemiologically, any interaction may introduce illnesses, and including the basic infections may eliminate them,” states Issrail Aquisse from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or intrusion may be highly damaging to their life and health as a group.”

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