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Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest open space far in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard sounds drawing near through the thick woodland.

He became aware that he had been encircled, and halted.

“One was standing, aiming with an projectile,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he became aware of my presence and I began to flee.”

He found himself face to face the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbour to these wandering individuals, who shun engagement with strangers.

A recent report from a human rights group states there are no fewer than 196 described as “isolated tribes” in existence worldwide. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the largest. It says half of these tribes may be decimated in the next decade if governments neglect to implement further to protect them.

The report asserts the greatest dangers stem from deforestation, mining or operations for petroleum. Uncontacted groups are highly susceptible to common sickness—as such, the study notes a risk is presented by interaction with religious missionaries and social media influencers looking for attention.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania more and more, as reported by residents.

This settlement is a fishermen's village of a handful of families, located high on the shores of the Tauhamanu River in the center of the of Peru Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the closest village by watercraft.

This region is not classified as a preserved reserve for isolated tribes, and logging companies function here.

Tomas reports that, at times, the sound of industrial tools can be detected continuously, and the tribe members are seeing their woodland damaged and ruined.

In Nueva Oceania, people say they are divided. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also possess profound respect for their “relatives” residing in the forest and wish to defend them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we are unable to alter their culture. For this reason we maintain our distance,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the risk of violence and the chance that loggers might subject the community to sicknesses they have no defense to.

During a visit in the village, the tribe made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a two-year-old daughter, was in the jungle picking produce when she detected them.

“We detected shouting, shouts from others, numerous of them. As if there were a whole group shouting,” she shared with us.

This marked the first instance she had encountered the tribe and she ran. Subsequently, her thoughts was still pounding from fear.

“As exist timber workers and operations cutting down the jungle they are fleeing, perhaps out of fear and they end up near us,” she stated. “We don't know how they might react towards us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while catching fish. One man was wounded by an bow to the stomach. He survived, but the other person was located dead days later with multiple puncture marks in his frame.

The administration maintains a strategy of no engagement with isolated people, establishing it as forbidden to initiate interactions with them.

This approach originated in a nearby nation following many years of advocacy by community representatives, who noted that first interaction with remote tribes could lead to entire groups being wiped out by sickness, hardship and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in the country came into contact with the world outside, half of their community perished within a short period. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community suffered the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely susceptible—epidemiologically, any interaction might spread illnesses, and even the simplest ones may wipe them out,” says a representative from a tribal support group. “Culturally too, any exposure or interference may be very harmful to their existence and survival as a society.”

For those living nearby of {