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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest open space deep in the Peruvian rainforest when he noticed movements drawing near through the thick forest.

He realized that he had been surrounded, and froze.

“One stood, aiming with an projectile,” he recalls. “Somehow he noticed that I was present and I began to flee.”

He ended up confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbour to these nomadic tribe, who avoid engagement with outsiders.

A recent document issued by a human rights group indicates remain at least 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” in existence in the world. This tribe is believed to be the biggest. The study states 50% of these tribes could be decimated in the next decade should administrations don't do additional to protect them.

It argues the most significant dangers stem from logging, extraction or operations for petroleum. Isolated tribes are extremely vulnerable to common sickness—consequently, it states a risk is posed by contact with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for engagement.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, based on accounts from inhabitants.

This settlement is a fishing community of seven or eight clans, located high on the edges of the local river in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, half a day from the nearest settlement by watercraft.

The territory is not designated as a protected area for remote communities, and deforestation operations operate here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the racket of logging machinery can be heard day and night, and the tribe members are observing their woodland disturbed and ruined.

Within the village, residents state they are divided. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they hold strong regard for their “kin” residing in the jungle and want to protect them.

“Permit them to live according to their traditions, we must not alter their traditions. That's why we keep our separation,” states Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the community's way of life, the risk of violence and the likelihood that loggers might introduce the tribe to diseases they have no resistance to.

While we were in the village, the tribe appeared again. A young mother, a resident with a two-year-old girl, was in the forest gathering food when she heard them.

“There were shouting, cries from people, a large number of them. Like it was a crowd calling out,” she told us.

It was the first instance she had encountered the Mashco Piro and she ran. Subsequently, her thoughts was still throbbing from anxiety.

“Because exist timber workers and companies destroying the forest they are fleeing, maybe because of dread and they come in proximity to us,” she stated. “We don't know how they might react towards us. This is what scares me.”

Recently, two individuals were confronted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One was struck by an projectile to the abdomen. He lived, but the other person was found dead days later with nine injuries in his physique.

The administration maintains a strategy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, rendering it prohibited to commence contact with them.

The policy was first adopted in the neighboring country following many years of lobbying by tribal advocacy organizations, who observed that initial exposure with remote tribes could lead to entire groups being decimated by disease, poverty and malnutrition.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in Peru came into contact with the broader society, a significant portion of their people succumbed within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe faced the same fate.

“Secluded communities are extremely at risk—epidemiologically, any contact may spread diseases, and including the simplest ones may eliminate them,” explains an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or disruption can be highly damaging to their existence and well-being as a community.”

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