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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny glade within in the of Peru jungle when he noticed sounds approaching through the thick jungle.

He realized he was surrounded, and stood still.

“One person positioned, directing with an projectile,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he detected that I was present and I began to run.”

He found himself encountering the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—served as practically a local to these itinerant people, who avoid contact with strangers.

A recent study issued by a human rights group states remain a minimum of 196 of what it calls “remote communities” remaining worldwide. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the biggest. The study says half of these communities could be eliminated in the next decade should administrations don't do more actions to defend them.

The report asserts the biggest threats are from timber harvesting, digging or exploration for petroleum. Remote communities are extremely susceptible to ordinary sickness—therefore, the report says a danger is posed by exposure with religious missionaries and online personalities seeking clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, as reported by inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing hamlet of a handful of clans, located elevated on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the closest settlement by boat.

The area is not classified as a preserved reserve for isolated tribes, and timber firms work here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the sound of logging machinery can be detected around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their jungle disturbed and ruined.

Among the locals, residents state they are torn. They fear the tribal weapons but they hold deep regard for their “kin” who live in the forest and desire to defend them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we can't change their traditions. This is why we preserve our separation,” says Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the community's way of life, the danger of conflict and the possibility that deforestation crews might subject the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no resistance to.

At the time in the settlement, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a woman with a two-year-old child, was in the woodland picking produce when she detected them.

“There were shouting, sounds from individuals, many of them. Like there was a whole group calling out,” she told us.

It was the first time she had met the tribe and she ran. An hour later, her thoughts was persistently racing from fear.

“Because there are timber workers and firms clearing the forest they are fleeing, perhaps due to terror and they arrive near us,” she explained. “We don't know how they will behave to us. That's what scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were confronted by the tribe while angling. One man was struck by an projectile to the gut. He recovered, but the second individual was found deceased days later with multiple injuries in his body.

The Peruvian government follows a approach of non-contact with secluded communities, making it illegal to initiate contact with them.

This approach was first adopted in the neighboring country following many years of advocacy by tribal advocacy organizations, who observed that initial interaction with secluded communities resulted to entire communities being eliminated by illness, hardship and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in Peru first encountered with the outside world, 50% of their community died within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community faced the similar destiny.

“Remote tribes are highly susceptible—epidemiologically, any contact might spread sicknesses, and even the simplest ones may wipe them out,” says Issrail Aquisse from a local advocacy organization. “In cultural terms, any contact or interference can be highly damaging to their way of life and well-being as a society.”

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