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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a small clearing far in the of Peru rainforest when he detected sounds approaching through the dense woodland.

It dawned on him that he stood hemmed in, and halted.

“A single individual stood, directing with an bow and arrow,” he states. “And somehow he detected I was here and I began to escape.”

He had come face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—residing in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a local to these itinerant tribe, who shun engagement with outsiders.

A recent document issued by a human rights organization states there are no fewer than 196 described as “uncontacted groups” in existence in the world. This tribe is considered to be the most numerous. The report claims half of these communities might be wiped out in the next decade if governments neglect to implement more measures to safeguard them.

It claims the greatest dangers come from logging, digging or exploration for crude. Isolated tribes are extremely susceptible to common illness—therefore, the report states a threat is posed by exposure with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for attention.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, according to residents.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing hamlet of a handful of families, perched high on the edges of the local river in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, 10 hours from the nearest town by canoe.

The area is not classified as a safeguarded reserve for uncontacted groups, and timber firms operate here.

According to Tomas that, on occasion, the noise of industrial tools can be noticed continuously, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their forest disrupted and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, residents report they are torn. They dread the tribal weapons but they also possess deep admiration for their “relatives” who live in the jungle and desire to protect them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we must not modify their traditions. That's why we keep our separation,” says Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the damage to the community's way of life, the threat of aggression and the likelihood that loggers might introduce the community to illnesses they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the village, the group appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a toddler child, was in the forest gathering fruit when she detected them.

“We detected calls, cries from others, a large number of them. As though there was a whole group shouting,” she told us.

That was the first time she had encountered the group and she ran. An hour later, her thoughts was still throbbing from anxiety.

“As exist deforestation crews and firms clearing the woodland they are fleeing, maybe out of fear and they arrive in proximity to us,” she said. “We are uncertain how they will behave towards us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

In 2022, two loggers were assaulted by the tribe while catching fish. One was wounded by an projectile to the stomach. He survived, but the other man was found lifeless subsequently with several injuries in his frame.

The Peruvian government follows a approach of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, making it forbidden to initiate interactions with them.

The policy began in a nearby nation following many years of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that first contact with remote tribes resulted to whole populations being decimated by illness, poverty and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in Peru first encountered with the broader society, a significant portion of their people perished within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua community faced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are highly at risk—from a disease perspective, any exposure could introduce illnesses, and including the simplest ones could eliminate them,” says a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any interaction or intrusion can be very harmful to their life and health as a group.”

For local residents of {