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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small glade far in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard sounds coming closer through the dense jungle.

It dawned on him that he stood surrounded, and stood still.

“A single individual was standing, pointing using an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Somehow he detected I was here and I commenced to escape.”

He had come face to face the Mashco Piro tribe. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the small village of Nueva Oceania—was almost a neighbor to these nomadic individuals, who shun engagement with outsiders.

A recent document issued by a human rights organisation states there are a minimum of 196 termed “isolated tribes” left worldwide. This tribe is believed to be the largest. It claims 50% of these groups may be eliminated over the coming ten years should administrations neglect to implement additional to protect them.

It argues the most significant risks are from deforestation, mining or operations for crude. Isolated tribes are extremely susceptible to basic illness—as such, it notes a danger is posed by exposure with evangelical missionaries and digital content creators looking for engagement.

In recent times, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, as reported by locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing village of a handful of families, sitting elevated on the edges of the local river in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest, 10 hours from the closest village by canoe.

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

Tomas reports that, at times, the racket of logging machinery can be detected day and night, and the community are seeing their jungle damaged and devastated.

Among the locals, residents say they are conflicted. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have profound admiration for their “relatives” dwelling in the woodland and desire to protect them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we are unable to change their culture. That's why we maintain our space,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of violence and the possibility that loggers might expose the Mashco Piro to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

During a visit in the village, the group appeared again. A young mother, a resident with a young girl, was in the forest gathering produce when she noticed them.

“We detected shouting, sounds from others, many of them. Like there were a whole group yelling,” she told us.

That was the initial occasion she had encountered the Mashco Piro and she ran. After sixty minutes, her mind was still racing from terror.

“Because exist deforestation crews and firms cutting down the woodland they're running away, perhaps due to terror and they come near us,” she said. “We are uncertain what their response may be towards us. This is what terrifies me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while catching fish. One man was wounded by an bow to the abdomen. He survived, but the other man was located dead days later with several puncture marks in his body.

The Peruvian government has a strategy of no engagement with secluded communities, rendering it forbidden to start contact with them.

This approach began in Brazil following many years of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who observed that initial contact with isolated people lead to whole populations being decimated by disease, hardship and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau people in the country made initial contact with the world outside, 50% of their population perished within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua people faced the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are extremely vulnerable—epidemiologically, any interaction may spread sicknesses, and even the simplest ones could eliminate them,” explains a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any contact or interference can be highly damaging to their life and survival as a society.”

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