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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny clearing deep in the of Peru jungle when he detected movements coming closer through the dense woodland.

He became aware he was encircled, and halted.

“One was standing, aiming using an arrow,” he remembers. “Somehow he detected I was here and I began to run.”

He found himself face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—who lives in the modest settlement of Nueva Oceania—was almost a local to these itinerant individuals, who avoid engagement with foreigners.

An updated report by a rights organization indicates remain a minimum of 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” left in the world. The group is thought to be the most numerous. The report states a significant portion of these groups might be wiped out in the next decade should administrations fail to take more actions to defend them.

The report asserts the greatest risks are from timber harvesting, extraction or drilling for crude. Isolated tribes are highly at risk to ordinary sickness—consequently, it says a risk is presented by interaction with evangelical missionaries and online personalities in pursuit of engagement.

In recent times, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, based on accounts from inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a angling hamlet of several households, perched atop on the banks of the local river deep within the Peruvian rainforest, half a day from the most accessible settlement by boat.

The territory is not designated as a safeguarded zone for uncontacted groups, and deforestation operations work here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the sound of heavy equipment can be detected continuously, and the tribe members are seeing their forest damaged and ruined.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants state they are divided. They fear the tribal weapons but they also possess deep regard for their “brothers” who live in the jungle and want to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't change their traditions. This is why we keep our space,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the damage to the community's way of life, the danger of violence and the likelihood that loggers might expose the community to diseases they have no resistance to.

At the time in the settlement, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a toddler child, was in the forest picking fruit when she detected them.

“We heard cries, shouts from individuals, a large number of them. As if it was a large gathering yelling,” she informed us.

This marked the first time she had encountered the Mashco Piro and she ran. An hour later, her head was continually pounding from fear.

“Since operate loggers and firms destroying the jungle they are fleeing, maybe due to terror and they arrive close to us,” she explained. “It is unclear what their response may be towards us. That is the thing that scares me.”

In 2022, two individuals were attacked by the tribe while angling. A single person was hit by an bow to the abdomen. He survived, but the second individual was found deceased days later with several puncture marks in his frame.

The Peruvian government has a policy of non-contact with isolated people, making it illegal to commence encounters with them.

The strategy was first adopted in a nearby nation after decades of advocacy by community representatives, who noted that early interaction with isolated people resulted to entire groups being wiped out by disease, hardship and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in Peru made initial contact with the outside world, 50% of their community died within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very susceptible—epidemiologically, any contact could transmit diseases, and even the most common illnesses may eliminate them,” says an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any exposure or disruption could be highly damaging to their existence and well-being as a society.”

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