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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small open space far in the Peruvian Amazon when he detected movements drawing near through the lush forest.

He became aware that he stood hemmed in, and stood still.

“One was standing, aiming using an projectile,” he remembers. “Somehow he detected of my presence and I commenced to run.”

He ended up encountering the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—had been virtually a local to these wandering people, who reject engagement with foreigners.

A new report by a advocacy organization states exist a minimum of 196 described as “uncontacted groups” left in the world. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the biggest. It says 50% of these groups may be decimated over the coming ten years should administrations neglect to implement further measures to safeguard them.

It argues the most significant risks are from logging, extraction or operations for crude. Isolated tribes are highly vulnerable to ordinary illness—as such, the report says a threat is posed by contact with proselytizers and online personalities seeking attention.

Lately, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to inhabitants.

The village is a fishing community of seven or eight clans, sitting atop on the shores of the local river in the center of the of Peru rainforest, a ten-hour journey from the closest town by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a safeguarded area for remote communities, and timber firms work here.

According to Tomas that, on occasion, the racket of heavy equipment can be detected around the clock, and the community are seeing their jungle damaged and destroyed.

Among the locals, inhabitants report they are divided. They fear the projectiles but they also possess strong respect for their “relatives” who live in the woodland and wish to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't change their traditions. This is why we preserve our separation,” states Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of conflict and the likelihood that timber workers might expose the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no defense to.

While we were in the settlement, the group appeared again. A young mother, a resident with a young daughter, was in the jungle collecting food when she noticed them.

“There were calls, sounds from individuals, many of them. As though there were a large gathering calling out,” she told us.

That was the initial occasion she had encountered the group and she ran. An hour later, her mind was persistently throbbing from terror.

“Since exist loggers and operations destroying the forest they are escaping, maybe due to terror and they end up close to us,” she explained. “We don't know how they might react to us. That's what scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while catching fish. A single person was hit by an bow to the stomach. He survived, but the second individual was located lifeless after several days with several arrow wounds in his frame.

Authorities in Peru maintains a policy of no engagement with secluded communities, making it illegal to commence contact with them.

The policy began in Brazil following many years of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who observed that first contact with isolated people could lead to entire groups being wiped out by sickness, poverty and hunger.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau community in Peru made initial contact with the broader society, 50% of their community died within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe faced the same fate.

“Secluded communities are highly vulnerable—in terms of health, any exposure might spread diseases, and even the basic infections might wipe them out,” says Issrail Aquisse from a tribal support group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or interference may be very harmful to their life and well-being as a community.”

For those living nearby of {