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Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a tiny clearing within in the Peruvian Amazon when he detected footsteps approaching through the dense forest.

He realized that he had been hemmed in, and stood still.

“A single individual was standing, directing with an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he noticed I was here and I started to flee.”

He ended up face to face the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—residing in the modest settlement of Nueva Oceania—was almost a neighbor to these nomadic individuals, who shun interaction with strangers.

A recent document issued by a advocacy organisation states there are at least 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” remaining globally. The group is thought to be the most numerous. It says 50% of these tribes could be eliminated over the coming ten years unless authorities neglect to implement more actions to defend them.

It claims the most significant threats stem from logging, mining or operations for crude. Isolated tribes are extremely susceptible to common disease—as such, the study states a danger is caused by exposure with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of attention.

In recent times, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to locals.

The village is a angling community of several families, sitting elevated on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the closest town by canoe.

This region is not recognised as a preserved zone for isolated tribes, and timber firms work here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the sound of logging machinery can be detected around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their woodland damaged and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, people state they are torn. They dread the projectiles but they also have deep regard for their “relatives” who live in the jungle and desire to protect them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we can't change their way of life. This is why we preserve our space,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the risk of violence and the likelihood that timber workers might subject the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

During a visit in the village, the group made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a woman with a two-year-old child, was in the jungle picking produce when she heard them.

“We heard calls, shouts from people, a large number of them. As if there were a whole group shouting,” she told us.

This marked the first time she had come across the tribe and she ran. Subsequently, her thoughts was continually racing from fear.

“Because operate loggers and companies destroying the woodland they're running away, maybe because of dread and they come in proximity to us,” she explained. “We don't know how they might react to us. That is the thing that scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while catching fish. One was wounded by an arrow to the gut. He survived, but the other person was found deceased subsequently with nine arrow wounds in his body.

The Peruvian government maintains a policy of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, establishing it as illegal to initiate encounters with them.

This approach was first adopted in the neighboring country after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who observed that initial contact with isolated people lead to entire groups being eliminated by illness, poverty and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in the country came into contact with the broader society, 50% of their people succumbed within a short period. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe faced the identical outcome.

“Remote tribes are extremely vulnerable—epidemiologically, any exposure may introduce diseases, and including the basic infections might wipe them out,” states Issrail Aquisse from a local advocacy organization. “Culturally too, any contact or disruption could be highly damaging to their existence and well-being as a community.”

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