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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest clearing deep in the of Peru Amazon when he heard sounds drawing near through the lush woodland.

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

“One stood, pointing with an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Somehow he detected that I was present and I commenced to flee.”

He had come face to face the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—was almost a neighbor to these nomadic people, who reject contact with outsiders.

A recent report by a human rights organization indicates exist at least 196 described as “isolated tribes” in existence worldwide. This tribe is considered to be the largest. The study says half of these groups might be eliminated in the next decade unless authorities neglect to implement more measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the greatest dangers are from timber harvesting, mining or operations for crude. Isolated tribes are extremely susceptible to basic disease—therefore, the study says a risk is caused by interaction with religious 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.

The village is a angling community of seven or eight clans, perched atop on the shores of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian rainforest, half a day from the most accessible town by boat.

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

Tomas says that, sometimes, the noise of heavy equipment can be heard continuously, and the tribe members are seeing their jungle damaged and devastated.

Among the locals, inhabitants report they are torn. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess deep regard for their “kin” residing in the forest and wish to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we are unable to change their culture. This is why we preserve our space,” states Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the threat of conflict and the likelihood that deforestation crews might subject the community to sicknesses they have no defense to.

During a visit in the village, the group appeared again. Letitia, a young mother with a toddler child, was in the forest gathering produce when she noticed them.

“We detected shouting, sounds from individuals, numerous of them. As if there were a whole group calling out,” she told us.

It was the first time she had encountered the group and she escaped. An hour later, her thoughts was persistently pounding from terror.

“Since there are deforestation crews and firms clearing the woodland they are fleeing, perhaps out of fear and they end up in proximity to us,” she stated. “We are uncertain what their response may be to us. That is the thing that scares me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while angling. A single person was hit by an projectile to the stomach. He recovered, but the other man was located dead after several days with several puncture marks in his body.

Authorities in Peru follows a strategy of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, rendering it forbidden to initiate encounters with them.

This approach originated in Brazil subsequent to prolonged of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who observed that first interaction with secluded communities resulted to entire communities being wiped out by disease, poverty and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country made initial contact with the outside world, half of their people perished within a short period. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the identical outcome.

“Remote tribes are very vulnerable—epidemiologically, any interaction might introduce diseases, and even the simplest ones may wipe them out,” states an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or intrusion may be extremely detrimental to their life and survival as a community.”

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