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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a small clearing within in the Peruvian jungle when he noticed sounds approaching through the thick jungle.

It dawned on him that he had been hemmed in, and froze.

“A single individual stood, pointing with an arrow,” he recalls. “Somehow he became aware of my presence and I began to flee.”

He found himself confronting the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a neighbour to these wandering tribe, who avoid interaction with outsiders.

A new document issued by a advocacy organisation states there are at least 196 of what it calls “remote communities” in existence worldwide. This tribe is believed to be the largest. The report says a significant portion of these tribes might be eliminated over the coming ten years unless authorities fail to take more to protect them.

It claims the most significant risks are from timber harvesting, mining or drilling for crude. Isolated tribes are highly at risk to ordinary disease—consequently, the study states a threat is caused by contact with religious missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of engagement.

Recently, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's community of a handful of households, perched high on the banks of the local river deep within the Peruvian rainforest, half a day from the closest town by watercraft.

The territory is not recognised as a preserved zone for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations operate here.

According to Tomas that, on occasion, the noise of industrial tools can be noticed day and night, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their forest disrupted and ruined.

Among the locals, inhabitants state they are torn. They are afraid of the tribal weapons but they hold profound regard for their “relatives” who live in the woodland and desire to protect them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we are unable to modify their way of life. This is why we maintain our space,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the community's way of life, the danger of conflict and the possibility that loggers might subject the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the community, the tribe appeared again. A young mother, a young mother with a toddler girl, was in the woodland picking produce when she detected them.

“There were calls, sounds from individuals, many of them. As though there was a crowd shouting,” she shared with us.

This marked the first instance she had come across the tribe and she fled. Subsequently, her head was still pounding from fear.

“As operate deforestation crews and operations destroying the woodland they're running away, maybe because of dread and they come near us,” she explained. “It is unclear how they will behave with us. That's what terrifies me.”

In 2022, two loggers were attacked by the group while angling. One man was hit by an arrow to the abdomen. He recovered, but the second individual was located deceased after several days with several injuries in his body.

The Peruvian government follows a strategy of avoiding interaction with isolated people, making it forbidden to commence encounters with them.

The strategy began in the neighboring country after decades of advocacy by indigenous rights groups, who observed that first contact with isolated people lead to entire communities being wiped out by sickness, hardship and starvation.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in Peru first encountered with the broader society, 50% of their community succumbed within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua people suffered the same fate.

“Secluded communities are highly vulnerable—epidemiologically, any exposure may transmit illnesses, and even the most common illnesses might wipe them out,” explains a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or disruption could be highly damaging to their life and survival as a society.”

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