🔗 Share this article

A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny glade deep in the Peruvian jungle when he noticed sounds drawing near through the thick jungle.

He realized that he had been encircled, and froze.

“One stood, directing using an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he detected that I was present and I started to flee.”

He found himself encountering members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—was practically a local to these nomadic people, who reject interaction with foreigners.

An updated report by a advocacy organisation indicates exist no fewer than 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” left in the world. The group is considered to be the most numerous. The study states a significant portion of these groups may be decimated within ten years should administrations neglect to implement additional measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the most significant threats are from timber harvesting, mining or drilling for petroleum. Isolated tribes are exceptionally vulnerable to basic sickness—consequently, it notes a threat is caused by exposure with proselytizers and digital content creators in pursuit of engagement.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, based on accounts from residents.

Nueva Oceania is a angling village of several households, perched elevated on the banks of the Tauhamanu River deep within the of Peru jungle, a ten-hour journey from the most accessible town by watercraft.

This region is not recognised as a protected area for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations work here.

Tomas says that, at times, the noise of heavy equipment can be heard continuously, and the tribe members are seeing their woodland disturbed and devastated.

Within the village, people say they are torn. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess strong admiration for their “brothers” dwelling in the forest and want to defend them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we must not modify their culture. For this reason we maintain our separation,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the tribe's survival, the risk of conflict and the chance that deforestation crews might subject the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no immunity to.

At the time in the community, the tribe made their presence felt again. A young mother, a young mother with a two-year-old child, was in the woodland gathering produce when she detected them.

“We heard cries, shouts from others, many of them. As though there were a crowd yelling,” she shared with us.

It was the first time she had come across the tribe and she fled. Subsequently, her head was persistently throbbing from fear.

“Since there are timber workers and operations cutting down the forest they are fleeing, possibly due to terror and they arrive in proximity to us,” she explained. “We don't know how they will behave towards us. This is what frightens me.”

Two years ago, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One was struck by an projectile to the stomach. He survived, but the other man was found dead subsequently with several injuries in his physique.

The Peruvian government has a policy of non-contact with isolated people, making it forbidden to commence interactions with them.

This approach was first adopted in the neighboring country following many years of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that first interaction with remote tribes resulted to entire groups being wiped out by disease, hardship and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau people in Peru made initial contact with the outside world, half of their community succumbed within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community faced the same fate.

“Remote tribes are highly susceptible—epidemiologically, any contact may introduce illnesses, and even the most common illnesses might decimate them,” says an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or interference may be extremely detrimental to their life and well-being as a society.”

For the neighbours of {