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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a small clearing within in the of Peru Amazon when he noticed sounds approaching through the dense woodland.

He realized that he had been hemmed in, and froze.

“One was standing, aiming with an projectile,” he recalls. “And somehow he detected I was here and I started to escape.”

He had come confronting members of the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—who lives in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—had been practically a local to these nomadic individuals, who avoid engagement with strangers.

An updated study from a human rights organisation claims remain at least 196 described as “uncontacted groups” remaining in the world. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the most numerous. It says a significant portion of these communities may be decimated over the coming ten years should administrations neglect to implement more to protect them.

It argues the greatest risks come from logging, mining or exploration for crude. Isolated tribes are exceptionally susceptible to common disease—as such, it states a threat is presented by exposure with religious missionaries and online personalities seeking clicks.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing hamlet of seven or eight families, sitting high on the shores of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest, a ten-hour journey from the closest town by watercraft.

The area is not recognised as a safeguarded reserve for remote communities, and deforestation operations work here.

Tomas reports that, at times, the sound of industrial tools can be noticed day and night, and the tribe members are observing their woodland disrupted and devastated.

Within the village, residents report they are torn. They dread the projectiles but they hold profound respect for their “brothers” residing in the forest and desire to protect them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't alter their traditions. For this reason we keep our separation,” states Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the harm to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of violence and the possibility that loggers might subject the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no defense to.

While we were in the community, the group made themselves known again. Letitia, a woman with a young girl, was in the forest gathering food when she detected them.

“There were calls, sounds from others, numerous of them. Like it was a crowd calling out,” she told us.

This marked the first instance she had come across the group and she ran. An hour later, her mind was still racing from fear.

“Since exist timber workers and firms cutting down the forest they're running away, perhaps out of fear and they end up in proximity to us,” she explained. “It is unclear what their response may be to us. That's what scares me.”

Two years ago, two individuals were attacked by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One man was struck by an projectile to the abdomen. He lived, but the second individual was found dead days later with nine injuries in his physique.

Authorities in Peru maintains a strategy of non-contact with isolated people, rendering it forbidden to start encounters with them.

This approach was first adopted in a nearby nation after decades of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who noted that early exposure with remote tribes resulted to whole populations being decimated by illness, hardship and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in the country made initial contact with the outside world, half of their population perished within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua community faced the similar destiny.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very vulnerable—epidemiologically, any interaction could introduce diseases, and even the most common illnesses may eliminate them,” states a representative from a tribal support group. “Culturally too, any contact or disruption could be very harmful to their life and well-being as a community.”

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