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Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest open space far in the of Peru rainforest when he noticed footsteps drawing near through the thick woodland.

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

“One was standing, aiming using an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “And somehow he detected of my presence and I commenced to flee.”

He found himself encountering the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—residing in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—was practically a neighbour to these itinerant people, who avoid engagement with outsiders.

A new document issued by a rights group indicates remain at least 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” remaining worldwide. This tribe is considered to be the largest. It claims half of these groups may be wiped out in the next decade if governments fail to take additional measures to safeguard them.

It argues the greatest dangers are from logging, mining or drilling for crude. Uncontacted groups are exceptionally at risk to basic disease—consequently, it notes a threat is posed by interaction with evangelical missionaries and online personalities looking for attention.

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

Nueva Oceania is a fishing community of seven or eight households, located atop on the shores of the local river in the center of the of Peru Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the nearest town by canoe.

The area is not classified as a preserved area for remote communities, and deforestation operations work here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the racket of industrial tools can be noticed day and night, and the community are seeing their jungle damaged and devastated.

Among the locals, inhabitants report they are divided. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess strong respect for their “relatives” dwelling in the forest and desire to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live according to their traditions, we must not modify their traditions. This is why we keep our space,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the threat of violence and the possibility that loggers might introduce the tribe to diseases they have no defense to.

While we were in the village, the group made their presence felt again. Letitia, a woman with a toddler child, was in the jungle collecting fruit when she detected them.

“We heard calls, cries from individuals, a large number of them. As if it was a whole group yelling,” she shared with us.

This marked the first instance she had come across the tribe and she escaped. After sixty minutes, her head was persistently racing from anxiety.

“Because there are deforestation crews and firms cutting down the woodland they are escaping, perhaps due to terror and they arrive in proximity to us,” she stated. “We are uncertain how they might react towards us. That's what frightens me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One was struck by an bow to the gut. He recovered, but the second individual was located dead days later with several puncture marks in his frame.

The Peruvian government maintains a strategy of non-contact with isolated people, rendering it forbidden to start contact with them.

The policy was first adopted in a nearby nation subsequent to prolonged of advocacy by community representatives, who noted that early exposure with secluded communities resulted to whole populations being wiped out by sickness, hardship and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country made initial contact with the outside world, 50% of their population died within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people faced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are highly vulnerable—epidemiologically, any interaction could spread diseases, and even the basic infections may wipe them out,” states Issrail Aquisse from a local advocacy organization. “In cultural terms, any interaction or disruption could be extremely detrimental to their way of life and health as a group.”

For those living nearby of {