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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest open space within in the Peruvian jungle when he detected sounds approaching through the lush forest.

He realized that he stood encircled, and stood still.

“A single individual positioned, aiming with an arrow,” he recalls. “And somehow he noticed I was here and I commenced to escape.”

He had come confronting the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—was almost a local to these wandering tribe, who shun engagement with strangers.

A new report from a advocacy organization indicates there are a minimum of 196 described as “uncontacted groups” in existence in the world. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the largest. The study claims half of these communities may be eliminated within ten years should administrations fail to take further measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the most significant threats are from deforestation, mining or operations for oil. Uncontacted groups are highly at risk to ordinary disease—therefore, it notes a danger is caused by contact with religious missionaries and online personalities looking for attention.

In recent times, the Mashco Piro have been appearing to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to residents.

This settlement is a angling community of seven or eight clans, located atop on the shores of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest, 10 hours from the closest settlement by boat.

The territory is not classified as a safeguarded area for remote communities, and logging companies function here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the racket of industrial tools can be detected day and night, and the tribe members are observing their woodland disturbed and ruined.

Among the locals, inhabitants state they are conflicted. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess strong respect for their “kin” residing in the woodland and desire to protect them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we must not change their traditions. For this reason we keep our separation,” explains Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the risk of conflict and the chance that deforestation crews might introduce the community to diseases they have no defense to.

During a visit in the village, the tribe made their presence felt again. A young mother, a young mother with a two-year-old daughter, was in the woodland gathering produce when she heard them.

“We detected cries, sounds from others, a large number of them. As if there was a crowd yelling,” she told us.

It was the first time she had encountered the tribe and she fled. Subsequently, her head was continually racing from terror.

“As operate loggers and firms cutting down the jungle they are escaping, maybe because of dread and they arrive near us,” she explained. “We are uncertain how they will behave towards us. That is the thing that scares me.”

In 2022, two individuals were confronted by the group while angling. One man was struck by an projectile to the gut. He lived, but the other person was found deceased subsequently with several puncture marks in his frame.

Authorities in Peru follows a strategy of no engagement with isolated people, making it prohibited to start contact with them.

The policy began in a nearby nation after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who saw that first interaction with secluded communities could lead to entire communities being wiped out by illness, poverty and starvation.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in Peru made initial contact with the world outside, 50% of their people perished within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely vulnerable—epidemiologically, any exposure might introduce sicknesses, and even the basic infections might wipe them out,” states an advocate from a local advocacy organization. “In cultural terms, any contact or interference can be highly damaging to their life and survival as a community.”

For local residents of {