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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest clearing deep in the of Peru rainforest when he detected movements drawing near through the lush forest.

He became aware he was surrounded, and froze.

“One person stood, aiming with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he detected I was here and I commenced to run.”

He had come face to face members of the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—residing in the small community of Nueva Oceania—had been practically a neighbor to these wandering tribe, who avoid interaction with foreigners.

A recent report issued by a advocacy group claims remain at least 196 described as “isolated tribes” left in the world. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the largest. The study states 50% of these communities may be wiped out within ten years should administrations neglect to implement more measures to safeguard them.

It claims the most significant threats stem from logging, extraction or exploration for oil. Uncontacted groups are extremely vulnerable to common disease—consequently, it says a risk is posed by exposure with proselytizers and social media influencers seeking clicks.

Lately, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to inhabitants.

This settlement is a angling village of a handful of households, sitting elevated on the shores of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, half a day from the nearest settlement by canoe.

The territory is not classified as a safeguarded zone for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations function here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the noise of logging machinery can be detected day and night, and the community are seeing their forest disrupted and devastated.

Within the village, inhabitants report they are conflicted. They fear the tribal weapons but they also have profound admiration for their “relatives” who live in the woodland and want to protect them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't alter their traditions. For this reason we preserve our separation,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the tribe's survival, the risk of violence and the likelihood that loggers might expose the community to sicknesses they have no resistance to.

At the time in the settlement, the group made themselves known again. A young mother, a woman with a two-year-old daughter, was in the woodland picking produce when she detected them.

“There were calls, sounds from individuals, many of them. Like it was a whole group shouting,” she told us.

That was the first time she had come across the Mashco Piro and she ran. An hour later, her thoughts was continually pounding from fear.

“Since operate loggers and firms clearing the woodland they're running away, possibly due to terror and they arrive near us,” she explained. “We are uncertain how they will behave with us. That's what scares me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were assaulted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One was wounded by an arrow to the abdomen. He survived, but the other man was discovered dead after several days with multiple puncture marks in his body.

The administration follows a approach of no engagement with secluded communities, rendering it illegal to commence encounters with them.

This approach originated in a nearby nation following many years of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who observed that first exposure with isolated people could lead to whole populations being decimated by sickness, hardship and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in the country came into contact with the broader society, half of their population perished within a few years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua community faced the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely at risk—in terms of health, any exposure may spread diseases, and even the simplest ones might eliminate them,” states Issrail Aquisse from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any exposure or intrusion may be extremely detrimental to their way of life and well-being as a community.”

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