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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest clearing within in the Peruvian Amazon when he noticed footsteps coming closer through the thick jungle.

He became aware he was surrounded, and froze.

“One person positioned, directing using an arrow,” he remembers. “And somehow he noticed I was here and I began to escape.”

He had come confronting the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—served as almost a neighbor to these wandering people, who shun interaction with outsiders.

An updated study issued by a human rights organisation states there are no fewer than 196 termed “remote communities” left in the world. The group is believed to be the most numerous. The study claims a significant portion of these groups could be wiped out over the coming ten years unless authorities don't do additional to protect them.

The report asserts the greatest dangers come from logging, digging or operations for oil. Isolated tribes are highly vulnerable to common illness—therefore, the report notes a threat is caused by contact with religious missionaries and online personalities seeking engagement.

In recent times, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, based on accounts from residents.

This settlement is a fishermen's village of a handful of clans, sitting elevated on the edges of the local river deep within the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the closest town by watercraft.

The territory is not recognised as a preserved area for uncontacted groups, and deforestation operations work here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the noise of logging machinery can be noticed day and night, and the community are seeing their woodland damaged and ruined.

Within the village, inhabitants say they are divided. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have profound respect for their “kin” who live in the jungle and want to defend them.

“Permit them to live according to their traditions, we can't change their traditions. That's why we preserve our distance,” 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 expose the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no defense to.

At the time in the community, the tribe made themselves known again. A young mother, a woman with a two-year-old child, was in the forest gathering produce when she detected them.

“There were shouting, sounds from others, many of them. As if there were a whole group calling out,” she shared with us.

It was the first instance she had encountered the group and she escaped. An hour later, her thoughts was continually pounding from anxiety.

“Because exist timber workers and operations destroying the jungle they're running away, perhaps out of fear and they end up close to us,” she said. “It is unclear what their response may be to us. This is what frightens me.”

In 2022, two loggers were confronted by the group while angling. One was struck by an bow to the gut. He survived, but the second individual was found deceased subsequently with nine injuries in his physique.

The administration has a approach of non-contact with isolated people, rendering it illegal to start encounters with them.

The policy began in Brazil following many years of lobbying by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that first contact with isolated people lead to whole populations being wiped out by sickness, hardship and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country first encountered with the world outside, half of their people died within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very susceptible—in terms of health, any contact could transmit sicknesses, and including the basic infections may decimate them,” states Issrail Aquisse from a tribal support group. “In cultural terms, any contact or intrusion may be highly damaging to their life and survival as a community.”

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