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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest clearing within in the of Peru Amazon when he detected movements coming closer through the thick forest.

He realized he was surrounded, and stood still.

“A single individual positioned, aiming using an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he became aware of my presence and I commenced to run.”

He ended up encountering the Mashco Piro tribe. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the modest settlement of Nueva Oceania—was practically a neighbour to these itinerant individuals, who reject contact with strangers.

An updated document from a human rights group claims there are no fewer than 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” left globally. The group is thought to be the most numerous. The report claims a significant portion of these communities may be decimated in the next decade unless authorities don't do additional measures to safeguard them.

It claims the greatest risks are from logging, extraction or drilling for petroleum. Isolated tribes are highly vulnerable to ordinary disease—as such, the study says a threat is caused by contact with religious missionaries and digital content creators seeking engagement.

In recent times, Mashco Piro people have been venturing to Nueva Oceania more and more, as reported by inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's village of seven or eight families, sitting atop on the banks of the local river in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, half a day from the nearest town by boat.

This region is not classified as a preserved reserve for uncontacted groups, and logging companies work here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the noise of industrial tools can be heard continuously, and the tribe members are seeing their jungle disrupted and ruined.

Within the village, inhabitants say they are torn. They dread the projectiles but they hold deep admiration for their “brothers” who live in the jungle and want to protect them.

“Permit them to live according to their traditions, we are unable to modify their way of life. This is why we maintain our distance,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the community's way of life, the threat of aggression and the chance that timber workers might introduce the community to diseases they have no immunity to.

At the time in the village, the tribe made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a two-year-old girl, was in the forest collecting food when she heard them.

“We detected shouting, cries from people, numerous of them. As though there were a large gathering yelling,” she told us.

This marked the first instance she had come across the Mashco Piro and she ran. After sixty minutes, her mind was still throbbing from anxiety.

“As there are deforestation crews and operations cutting down the jungle they're running away, perhaps out of fear and they come near us,” she explained. “We don't know how they will behave towards us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

Two years ago, two loggers were confronted by the Mashco Piro while catching fish. One was struck by an projectile to the stomach. He survived, but the second individual was located dead after several days with several arrow wounds in his physique.

Authorities in Peru follows a approach of non-contact with remote tribes, making it forbidden to commence contact with them.

This approach was first adopted in Brazil after decades of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who observed that early contact with remote tribes resulted to entire communities being eliminated by illness, hardship and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the outside world, half of their people died within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua people suffered the similar destiny.

“Secluded communities are very susceptible—in terms of health, any interaction could transmit diseases, and including the most common illnesses may wipe them out,” explains a representative from a local advocacy organization. “Culturally too, any interaction or intrusion may be extremely detrimental to their life and survival as a group.”

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