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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest glade deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he heard movements coming closer through the lush jungle.

He became aware that he stood surrounded, and stood still.

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

He had come confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the modest settlement of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a local to these itinerant tribe, who avoid interaction with strangers.

A recent report issued by a rights organisation indicates remain no fewer than 196 described as “isolated tribes” left globally. The group is believed to be the most numerous. The study states 50% of these communities might be eliminated within ten years if governments don't do more measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the biggest dangers are from logging, extraction or operations for oil. Remote communities are extremely vulnerable to common sickness—consequently, it says a threat is caused by interaction with religious missionaries and digital content creators looking for engagement.

Recently, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, based on accounts from locals.

This settlement is a fishermen's hamlet of several clans, located high on the shores of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the of Peru rainforest, 10 hours from the closest town by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a safeguarded zone for isolated tribes, and timber firms function here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the sound of heavy equipment can be noticed around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their jungle disturbed and ruined.

Among the locals, inhabitants report they are divided. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have strong admiration for their “relatives” who live in the forest and want to protect them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we must not modify their culture. That's why we maintain our distance,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the threat of aggression and the chance that loggers might expose the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no defense to.

During a visit in the village, the group appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a two-year-old daughter, was in the woodland picking food when she noticed them.

“We detected calls, shouts from people, numerous of them. As if it was a whole group calling out,” she shared with us.

It was the initial occasion she had encountered the group and she fled. An hour later, her thoughts was persistently pounding from terror.

“Since exist timber workers and operations destroying the woodland they're running away, possibly out of fear and they end up in proximity to us,” she stated. “We don't know how they will behave to us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

Recently, two loggers were assaulted by the Mashco Piro while angling. A single person was hit by an projectile to the gut. He survived, but the other person was discovered dead after several days with several puncture marks in his frame.

The Peruvian government follows a policy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, establishing it as illegal to initiate contact with them.

The strategy began in a nearby nation subsequent to prolonged of lobbying by community representatives, who noted that early exposure with secluded communities resulted to whole populations being decimated by disease, hardship and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau community in Peru came into contact with the broader society, 50% of their community succumbed within a short period. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the same fate.

“Remote tribes are very susceptible—epidemiologically, any exposure might introduce sicknesses, and even the most common illnesses might eliminate them,” explains a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or disruption can be highly damaging to their existence and health as a society.”

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