🔗 Share this article

Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small open space within in the of Peru jungle when he heard sounds drawing near through the dense jungle.

He became aware he was hemmed in, and halted.

“One stood, aiming with an arrow,” he states. “Somehow he became aware that I was present and I began to escape.”

He found himself confronting the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the modest village of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbor to these wandering people, who shun contact with strangers.

A recent report by a human rights group claims remain at least 196 described as “isolated tribes” in existence worldwide. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the largest. The report says 50% of these communities may be decimated within ten years if governments neglect to implement more actions to defend them.

It argues the most significant threats come from deforestation, digging or exploration for crude. Isolated tribes are highly vulnerable to ordinary illness—as such, the study says a risk is posed by contact with proselytizers and online personalities seeking engagement.

Recently, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, as reported by locals.

The village is a fishermen's hamlet of several clans, sitting atop on the edges of the local river deep within the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the closest settlement by watercraft.

The territory is not recognised as a protected zone for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations operate here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the noise of logging machinery can be heard continuously, and the community are seeing their woodland disturbed and ruined.

Within the village, residents state they are divided. They dread the tribal weapons but they hold profound regard for their “kin” residing in the jungle and desire to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we must not change their traditions. This is why we maintain our separation,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the damage to the community's way of life, the risk of conflict and the chance that timber workers might expose the community to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

While we were in the village, the group appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a young girl, was in the woodland collecting food when she noticed them.

“We detected calls, sounds from individuals, a large number of them. As if it was a large gathering calling out,” she told us.

This marked the first time she had met the group and she escaped. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was still racing from terror.

“Because exist deforestation crews and companies cutting down the jungle they're running away, possibly because of dread and they arrive near us,” she explained. “We don't know how they might react towards us. This is what scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were confronted by the tribe while fishing. A single person was hit by an arrow to the stomach. He survived, but the other man was found lifeless subsequently with nine puncture marks in his physique.

The Peruvian government maintains a strategy of no engagement with remote tribes, establishing it as prohibited to commence interactions with them.

This approach began in Brazil following many years of advocacy by community representatives, who saw that initial contact with remote tribes lead to whole populations being wiped out by disease, poverty and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the broader society, a significant portion of their people succumbed within a few years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua community suffered the same fate.

“Remote tribes are highly susceptible—in terms of health, any exposure could transmit diseases, and even the basic infections may eliminate them,” states Issrail Aquisse from a tribal support group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or intrusion could be highly damaging to their existence and survival as a society.”

For the neighbours of {