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Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest clearing within in the of Peru jungle when he detected sounds coming closer through the dense jungle.

He became aware that he had been hemmed in, and stood still.

“A single individual positioned, aiming using an arrow,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he detected of my presence and I started to flee.”

He ended up encountering the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—who lives in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—had been practically a neighbour to these nomadic people, who avoid contact with foreigners.

A new report from a human rights group claims remain at least 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” in existence globally. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the biggest. The study says a significant portion of these groups could be decimated within ten years if governments don't do further to protect them.

It claims the greatest risks stem from timber harvesting, extraction or drilling for oil. Uncontacted groups are extremely susceptible to ordinary illness—therefore, it notes a danger is posed by contact with religious missionaries and digital content creators looking for clicks.

In recent times, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's hamlet of seven or eight clans, perched high on the banks of the local river in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the closest village by canoe.

This region is not designated as a safeguarded reserve for remote communities, and timber firms operate here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the noise of industrial tools can be heard day and night, and the tribe members are witnessing their jungle disturbed and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, people say they are torn. They dread the projectiles but they also have strong admiration for their “brothers” residing in the woodland and wish to protect them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we are unable to modify their traditions. This is why we keep our separation,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the tribe's survival, the threat of conflict and the possibility that deforestation crews might introduce the tribe to sicknesses they have no defense to.

While we were in the village, the group appeared again. A young mother, a young mother with a young girl, was in the woodland collecting food when she detected them.

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

It was the initial occasion she had come across the tribe and she escaped. Subsequently, her head was persistently racing from anxiety.

“Because operate loggers and companies destroying the woodland they are fleeing, perhaps due to terror and they come in proximity to us,” she stated. “We don't know how they will behave towards us. This is what scares me.”

Recently, two individuals were assaulted by the group while catching fish. A single person was struck by an projectile to the gut. He survived, but the other person was found deceased after several days with multiple puncture marks in his body.

The Peruvian government follows a policy of no engagement with isolated people, establishing it as forbidden to initiate encounters with them.

The strategy began in the neighboring country following many years of lobbying by community representatives, who saw that first interaction with isolated people lead to whole populations being decimated by sickness, hardship and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the world outside, half of their community succumbed within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua people faced the similar destiny.

“Remote tribes are highly susceptible—from a disease perspective, any contact might introduce diseases, and including the basic infections might eliminate them,” explains Issrail Aquisse from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any exposure or disruption can be very harmful to their life and well-being as a society.”

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