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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest clearing deep in the of Peru Amazon when he noticed sounds approaching through the lush jungle.

It dawned on him he was surrounded, and stood still.

“One person stood, directing using an arrow,” he remembers. “And somehow he detected that I was present and I started to escape.”

He had come confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—served as practically a neighbour to these nomadic individuals, who reject engagement with foreigners.

An updated study by a human rights group claims there are no fewer than 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” in existence in the world. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the most numerous. The study claims half of these tribes could be eliminated over the coming ten years unless authorities don't do additional measures to safeguard them.

It argues the most significant risks stem from deforestation, digging or exploration for crude. Remote communities are extremely vulnerable to common disease—consequently, the study states a risk is presented by contact with evangelical missionaries and online personalities in pursuit of clicks.

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

The village is a fishing hamlet of several clans, located elevated on the shores of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the nearest town by canoe.

The area is not designated as a preserved zone for remote communities, and timber firms function here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the racket of industrial tools can be noticed around the clock, and the community are observing their woodland disrupted and destroyed.

Within the village, inhabitants state they are divided. They are afraid of the projectiles but they hold profound regard for their “brothers” who live in the jungle and want to defend them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't alter their traditions. This is why we maintain our separation,” says Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the damage to the tribe's survival, the risk of aggression and the likelihood that loggers might expose the tribe to sicknesses they have no resistance to.

At the time in the community, the group appeared again. Letitia, a woman with a young daughter, was in the jungle gathering food when she detected them.

“We heard shouting, sounds from people, a large number of them. Like there were a large gathering yelling,” she told us.

This marked the first time she had encountered the Mashco Piro and she ran. An hour later, her mind was continually throbbing from anxiety.

“Since there are timber workers and operations destroying the forest they're running away, perhaps due to terror and they end up close to us,” she explained. “We are uncertain how they might react with us. That is the thing that scares me.”

Recently, two individuals were attacked by the group while fishing. One man was wounded by an bow to the stomach. He survived, but the other person was found dead days later with multiple arrow wounds in his physique.

Authorities in Peru has a approach of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, rendering it illegal to start contact with them.

The policy originated in a nearby nation following many years of lobbying by community representatives, who saw that initial contact with remote tribes resulted to entire communities being wiped out by sickness, destitution and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country first encountered with the outside world, half of their population succumbed within a short period. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua community faced the same fate.

“Remote tribes are highly vulnerable—from a disease perspective, any interaction could spread illnesses, and including the simplest ones could eliminate them,” explains an advocate from a local advocacy organization. “From a societal perspective, any exposure or interference could be very harmful to their way of life and survival as a group.”

For those living nearby of {