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Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small glade far in the Peruvian Amazon when he noticed footsteps approaching through the lush woodland.

He realized that he had been surrounded, and froze.

“One was standing, aiming with an projectile,” he states. “Somehow he noticed I was here and I commenced to escape.”

He found himself encountering members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a neighbor to these nomadic tribe, who shun engagement with strangers.

A recent report by a rights organization states there are a minimum of 196 of what it calls “remote communities” remaining globally. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the biggest. It claims 50% of these groups may be eliminated in the next decade if governments neglect to implement more actions to defend them.

It claims the biggest threats are from deforestation, mining or drilling for oil. Remote communities are extremely vulnerable to ordinary illness—as such, the study says a threat is posed by exposure with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers seeking clicks.

In recent times, the Mashco Piro have been appearing to Nueva Oceania more and more, as reported by residents.

This settlement is a angling village of several families, sitting high on the edges of the local river deep within the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the closest village by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a protected zone for isolated tribes, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas says that, on occasion, the racket of heavy equipment can be noticed continuously, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their forest disrupted and destroyed.

Within the village, people state they are torn. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have strong admiration for their “relatives” residing in the woodland and desire to protect them.

“Let them live in their own way, we can't change their culture. For this reason we keep our distance,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the harm to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the risk of conflict and the likelihood that deforestation crews might expose the tribe to illnesses they have no immunity to.

At the time in the settlement, the Mashco Piro appeared again. A young mother, a resident with a toddler child, was in the forest collecting fruit when she noticed them.

“We detected cries, sounds from individuals, many of them. As if there were a large gathering yelling,” she shared with us.

That was the first instance she had encountered the tribe and she escaped. An hour later, her head was continually pounding from anxiety.

“Because operate deforestation crews and operations cutting down the forest they are fleeing, possibly because of dread and they arrive in proximity to us,” she stated. “We don't know what their response may be towards us. This is what terrifies me.”

Two years ago, two loggers were attacked by the tribe while catching fish. A single person was struck by an projectile to the abdomen. He recovered, but the other man was located deceased subsequently with multiple injuries in his body.

Authorities in Peru has a policy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, rendering it illegal to initiate interactions with them.

The strategy was first adopted in a nearby nation after decades of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who saw that first contact with remote tribes could lead to entire groups being decimated by sickness, hardship and malnutrition.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau people in Peru first encountered with the broader society, half of their people succumbed within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua people faced the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are very vulnerable—in terms of health, any contact may introduce illnesses, and even the basic infections could eliminate them,” says Issrail Aquisse from a tribal support group. “Culturally too, any contact or disruption may be very harmful to their way of life and survival as a group.”

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