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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest open space deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he detected movements approaching through the lush jungle.

He became aware he was encircled, and halted.

“A single individual was standing, pointing with an arrow,” he recalls. “Somehow he detected of my presence and I started to escape.”

He ended up face to face the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a neighbour to these itinerant tribe, who avoid contact with strangers.

An updated document from a advocacy organisation indicates exist at least 196 described as “remote communities” left globally. This tribe is believed to be the biggest. The report says 50% of these groups could be decimated in the next decade unless authorities don't do further to protect them.

It claims the biggest dangers stem from timber harvesting, mining or drilling for oil. Remote communities are highly at risk to ordinary sickness—consequently, it says a risk is posed by contact with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for attention.

Lately, members of the tribe have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, as reported by inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's hamlet of several clans, perched elevated on the edges of the local river in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the closest village by watercraft.

This region is not designated as a safeguarded area for remote communities, and deforestation operations function here.

Tomas says that, at times, the sound of logging machinery can be detected around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their woodland disturbed and ruined.

In Nueva Oceania, residents state they are torn. They dread the tribal weapons but they hold strong admiration for their “brothers” residing in the forest and desire to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live as they live, we must not modify their traditions. For this reason we preserve our separation,” says Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the community's way of life, the danger of violence and the possibility that loggers might introduce the tribe to diseases they have no resistance to.

While we were in the settlement, the tribe made their presence felt again. Letitia, a young mother with a young girl, was in the forest collecting fruit when she heard them.

“We heard calls, cries from others, many of them. As though there was a whole group calling out,” she shared with us.

This marked the first instance she had come across the tribe and she ran. An hour later, her thoughts was still pounding from terror.

“Since operate timber workers and firms clearing the forest they're running away, maybe out of fear and they end up close to us,” she explained. “We are uncertain what their response may be with us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the tribe while catching fish. One was wounded by an arrow to the abdomen. He lived, but the other man was located dead subsequently with nine puncture marks in his body.

The administration has a approach of no engagement with isolated people, establishing it as prohibited to start contact with them.

The policy was first adopted in the neighboring country after decades of lobbying by tribal advocacy organizations, who saw that first interaction with isolated people could lead to entire groups being eliminated by sickness, hardship and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in the country made initial contact with the outside world, a significant portion of their community died within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community experienced the identical outcome.

“Remote tribes are very susceptible—epidemiologically, any interaction could introduce sicknesses, and even the simplest ones might decimate them,” states Issrail Aquisse from a tribal support group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or disruption can be very harmful to their way of life and well-being as a community.”

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