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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest open space deep in the Peruvian jungle when he noticed movements approaching through the lush forest.

He realized that he had been hemmed in, and froze.

“One positioned, pointing with an projectile,” he recalls. “And somehow he became aware I was here and I began to escape.”

He had come encountering the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—served as almost a local to these wandering people, who avoid engagement with strangers.

A recent report issued by a rights group claims exist at least 196 described as “remote communities” in existence globally. This tribe is considered to be the most numerous. The report states a significant portion of these groups may be eliminated in the next decade if governments don't do additional measures to safeguard them.

It claims the most significant threats are from logging, mining or exploration for petroleum. Isolated tribes are exceptionally susceptible to basic sickness—therefore, the study states a threat is caused by interaction with evangelical missionaries and online personalities in pursuit of clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, as reported by inhabitants.

The village is a fishermen's community of several families, located high on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the closest town by boat.

The territory is not classified as a safeguarded area for isolated tribes, and timber firms operate here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the noise of industrial tools can be detected around the clock, and the tribe members are observing their woodland damaged and ruined.

Among the locals, people report they are conflicted. They dread the tribal weapons but they hold deep regard for their “kin” dwelling in the woodland and wish to protect them.

“Allow them to live according to their traditions, we can't change their traditions. This is why we maintain our separation,” explains Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the community's way of life, the risk of conflict and the likelihood that deforestation crews might introduce the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

At the time in the settlement, the tribe appeared again. Letitia, a woman with a young daughter, was in the woodland collecting produce when she heard them.

“We heard cries, cries from people, many of them. Like it was a whole group calling out,” she told us.

That was the first instance she had met the group and she fled. After sixty minutes, her head was persistently throbbing from fear.

“Because operate timber workers and companies clearing the woodland they're running away, maybe due to terror and they end up near us,” she explained. “It is unclear how they might react to us. That is the thing that scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were confronted by the tribe while fishing. One was struck by an projectile to the gut. He lived, but the second individual was discovered deceased subsequently with nine puncture marks in his frame.

Authorities in Peru maintains a strategy of no engagement with secluded communities, establishing it as forbidden to initiate contact with them.

The policy originated in a nearby nation after decades of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who saw that initial exposure with secluded communities lead to whole populations being wiped out by sickness, hardship and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in Peru made initial contact with the outside world, half of their population succumbed within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the similar destiny.

“Remote tribes are very susceptible—epidemiologically, any interaction could transmit illnesses, and even the basic infections may decimate them,” says a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or disruption can be highly damaging to their existence and well-being as a community.”

For local residents of {