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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny glade deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he detected sounds approaching through the lush jungle.

He became aware he was hemmed in, and stood still.

“One person was standing, pointing with an bow and arrow,” he states. “And somehow he became aware I was here and I began to escape.”

He found himself confronting members of the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—residing in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbor to these wandering people, who reject contact with foreigners.

A new study issued by a human rights organisation indicates there are no fewer than 196 termed “uncontacted groups” left in the world. The group is believed to be the largest. The study says a significant portion of these tribes may be decimated in the next decade if governments fail to take further to protect them.

It argues the biggest dangers come from deforestation, mining or drilling for oil. Remote communities are extremely at risk to common illness—therefore, the study states a risk is presented by contact with proselytizers and digital content creators looking for clicks.

Lately, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, based on accounts from locals.

Nueva Oceania is a angling village of a handful of households, sitting high on the shores of the local river in the heart of the of Peru rainforest, half a day from the most accessible town by watercraft.

This region is not classified as a safeguarded zone for uncontacted groups, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas says that, on occasion, the noise of heavy equipment can be detected day and night, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their forest damaged and destroyed.

Among the locals, residents state they are torn. They fear the projectiles but they hold deep regard for their “relatives” dwelling in the forest and wish to safeguard them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we can't modify their traditions. That's why we keep our space,” says Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of aggression and the likelihood that timber workers might expose the community to illnesses they have no defense to.

While we were in the settlement, the Mashco Piro appeared again. A young mother, a young mother with a two-year-old daughter, was in the woodland collecting produce when she noticed them.

“We heard cries, cries from individuals, many of them. As if it was a crowd shouting,” she informed us.

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

“Because operate loggers and firms destroying the woodland they are escaping, perhaps because of dread and they end up near us,” she explained. “We don't know what their response may be with us. That's what terrifies me.”

Two years ago, two individuals were confronted by the group while fishing. One man was struck by an arrow to the abdomen. He lived, but the other man was discovered dead subsequently with nine arrow wounds in his frame.

The Peruvian government follows a approach of avoiding interaction with isolated people, rendering it prohibited to start interactions with them.

The strategy originated in the neighboring country after decades of advocacy by community representatives, who saw that first contact with isolated people lead to whole populations being wiped out by sickness, hardship and hunger.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau community in Peru made initial contact with the outside world, half of their people succumbed within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua people suffered the identical outcome.

“Remote tribes are very at risk—epidemiologically, any contact might introduce sicknesses, and even the simplest ones could wipe them out,” states a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any interaction or interference may be very harmful to their way of life and survival as a society.”

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