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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small clearing far in the Peruvian Amazon when he detected footsteps drawing near through the thick jungle.

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

“One stood, aiming with an arrow,” he remembers. “Somehow he became aware of my presence and I started to escape.”

He ended up face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—was practically a local to these itinerant individuals, who reject engagement with strangers.

An updated report by a human rights organisation claims exist a minimum of 196 termed “isolated tribes” in existence in the world. The group is thought to be the most numerous. It claims a significant portion of these tribes might be eliminated over the coming ten years unless authorities fail to take additional actions to defend them.

It argues the greatest threats stem from deforestation, mining or exploration for crude. Remote communities are exceptionally vulnerable to ordinary sickness—as such, the report says a danger is posed by interaction with evangelical missionaries and digital content creators looking for attention.

Lately, Mashco Piro people have been appearing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, according to inhabitants.

This settlement is a fishing village of seven or eight clans, located high on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the of Peru Amazon, 10 hours from the most accessible settlement by boat.

This region is not recognised as a protected area for isolated tribes, and timber firms work here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the noise of logging machinery can be detected continuously, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their jungle damaged and devastated.

Among the locals, people say they are divided. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess deep admiration for their “brothers” residing in the jungle and desire to defend them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we must not modify their traditions. For this reason we preserve our separation,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the tribe's survival, the threat of conflict and the chance that loggers might introduce the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no immunity to.

During a visit in the settlement, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a two-year-old girl, was in the woodland gathering fruit when she noticed them.

“We heard calls, sounds from individuals, a large number of them. As though there were a crowd shouting,” she shared with us.

It was the first time she had met the Mashco Piro and she ran. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was still throbbing from fear.

“Because exist timber workers and companies cutting down the forest they're running away, perhaps due to terror and they end up in proximity to us,” she stated. “We are uncertain how they might react with us. This is what scares me.”

Two years ago, two individuals were confronted by the Mashco Piro while angling. A single person was struck by an projectile to the abdomen. He survived, but the other man was discovered dead subsequently with several injuries in his body.

The Peruvian government maintains a policy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, making it illegal to start contact with them.

This approach began in Brazil following many years of lobbying by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that early interaction with secluded communities resulted to entire communities being eliminated by disease, poverty and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in the country first encountered with the outside world, a significant portion of their people succumbed within a few years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people experienced the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely at risk—from a disease perspective, any interaction could transmit diseases, and even the most common illnesses could decimate them,” states an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any interaction or intrusion can be very harmful to their way of life and health as a society.”

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