🔗 Share this article

The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest open space deep in the of Peru jungle when he noticed footsteps approaching through the lush forest.

It dawned on him he was hemmed in, and halted.

“One was standing, pointing using an projectile,” he recalls. “And somehow he became aware of my presence and I started to flee.”

He found himself confronting the Mashco Piro tribe. Over many years, Tomas—dwelling in the modest village of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbour to these nomadic individuals, who reject engagement with outsiders.

An updated study issued by a rights organization states remain a minimum of 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” in existence in the world. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the largest. It states 50% of these communities could be decimated within ten years should administrations fail to take further actions to defend them.

It argues the greatest dangers come from logging, extraction or operations for crude. Isolated tribes are extremely at risk to basic illness—therefore, the study states a threat is presented by exposure with religious missionaries and social media influencers seeking attention.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to inhabitants.

The village is a fishing community of seven or eight households, perched elevated on the shores of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the most accessible settlement by boat.

The area is not classified as a preserved reserve for remote communities, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas says that, sometimes, the racket of industrial tools can be noticed day and night, and the community are seeing their jungle disrupted and ruined.

Within the village, residents say they are torn. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have deep regard for their “brothers” residing in the jungle and wish to safeguard them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we can't modify their way of life. For this reason we keep our separation,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the community's way of life, the risk of conflict and the possibility that timber workers might expose the tribe to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

At the time in the community, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. Letitia, a young mother with a two-year-old daughter, was in the woodland gathering produce when she detected them.

“There were shouting, cries from others, many of them. As if there was a large gathering calling out,” she told us.

That was the initial occasion she had met the group and she escaped. After sixty minutes, her mind was still racing from fear.

“As operate deforestation crews and firms cutting down the forest they are escaping, perhaps out of fear and they come near us,” she said. “We are uncertain how they will behave with us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

In 2022, two individuals were attacked by the tribe while catching fish. A single person was wounded by an bow to the gut. He recovered, but the second individual was discovered deceased after several days with several arrow wounds in his body.

Authorities in Peru maintains a strategy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, rendering it forbidden to start contact with them.

The policy began in the neighboring country subsequent to prolonged of campaigning by community representatives, who saw that first interaction with secluded communities could lead to entire communities being decimated by disease, hardship and starvation.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau people in the country first encountered with the outside world, half of their population died within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua community faced the similar destiny.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very susceptible—from a disease perspective, any contact may transmit diseases, and even the basic infections could wipe them out,” says an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any interaction or disruption may be very harmful to their life and well-being as a community.”

For local residents of {