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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small clearing deep in the Peruvian jungle when he noticed footsteps approaching through the thick woodland.

He realized that he stood surrounded, and froze.

“One person stood, pointing with an arrow,” he states. “And somehow he detected that I was present and I started to escape.”

He ended up confronting the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—dwelling in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as almost a local to these itinerant people, who avoid engagement with outsiders.

A recent report by a rights organization indicates there are at least 196 termed “uncontacted groups” in existence in the world. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the largest. The report claims half of these groups may be decimated over the coming ten years if governments fail to take additional measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the biggest dangers are from deforestation, digging or operations for oil. Isolated tribes are extremely susceptible to common disease—therefore, the report notes a danger is caused by interaction with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for engagement.

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

The village is a angling village of seven or eight households, located atop on the shores of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the most accessible town by boat.

The area is not classified as a preserved area for uncontacted groups, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas says that, on occasion, the racket of heavy equipment can be detected day and night, and the tribe members are witnessing their jungle disrupted and ruined.

Within the village, inhabitants report they are conflicted. They dread the Mashco Piro's arrows but they hold profound regard for their “relatives” dwelling in the jungle and desire to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we are unable to alter their traditions. For this reason we maintain our space,” explains Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the community's way of life, the danger of conflict and the possibility that deforestation crews might expose the tribe to illnesses they have no immunity to.

During a visit in the village, the group appeared again. Letitia, a young mother with a toddler daughter, was in the jungle picking food when she heard them.

“We heard cries, cries from people, numerous of them. As if it was a large gathering calling out,” she shared with us.

It was the first instance she had encountered the group and she ran. An hour later, her head was still pounding from fear.

“Since exist timber workers and operations cutting down the forest they are escaping, perhaps due to terror and they end up close to us,” she stated. “We are uncertain what their response may be to us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were assaulted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One man was wounded by an arrow to the stomach. He survived, but the second individual was located deceased after several days with nine arrow wounds in his frame.

The administration maintains a strategy of avoiding interaction with isolated people, establishing it as forbidden to start contact with them.

The policy began in a nearby nation after decades of advocacy by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that initial contact with remote tribes could lead to whole populations being wiped out by disease, destitution and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in Peru came into contact with the outside world, 50% of their people died within a few years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe faced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely susceptible—epidemiologically, any exposure may transmit illnesses, and even the simplest ones might decimate them,” says an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any interaction or intrusion could be highly damaging to their life and health as a society.”

For local residents of {