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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small clearing far in the Peruvian Amazon when he detected movements approaching through the thick forest.

He realized he was surrounded, and froze.

“One stood, aiming with an projectile,” he states. “And somehow he noticed I was here and I started to run.”

He had come encountering the Mashco Piro tribe. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—was almost a neighbor to these nomadic tribe, who reject interaction with foreigners.

A new report by a advocacy group claims there are a minimum of 196 of what it calls “remote communities” left globally. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the most numerous. The report states a significant portion of these communities may be decimated over the coming ten years if governments don't do more to protect them.

It argues the greatest threats come from logging, extraction or operations for petroleum. Uncontacted groups are extremely at risk to common sickness—consequently, the study states a danger is presented by exposure with religious missionaries and digital content creators in pursuit of clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been coming to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, based on accounts from residents.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's hamlet of seven or eight clans, sitting high on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the closest town by canoe.

The territory is not recognised as a protected area for remote communities, and logging companies function here.

According to Tomas that, at times, the noise of heavy equipment can be heard around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their woodland disturbed and ruined.

Within the village, inhabitants report they are conflicted. They dread the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also possess strong admiration for their “relatives” who live in the forest and wish to protect them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we must not alter their culture. This is why we preserve our space,” states Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the harm to the tribe's survival, the threat of aggression and the chance that deforestation crews might expose the community to illnesses they have no immunity to.

At the time in the village, the tribe made their presence felt again. A young mother, a young mother with a toddler daughter, was in the jungle gathering food when she detected them.

“We detected cries, cries from others, numerous of them. Like there were a large gathering calling out,” she shared with us.

This marked the initial occasion she had met the tribe and she escaped. An hour later, her thoughts was still pounding from anxiety.

“Since exist timber workers and operations clearing the woodland they're running away, maybe due to terror and they come near us,” she said. “We are uncertain how they will behave with us. That's what frightens me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the tribe while fishing. One man was hit by an projectile to the gut. He survived, but the second individual was located lifeless days later with nine injuries in his physique.

Authorities in Peru maintains a policy of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, making it forbidden to commence interactions with them.

The policy began in a nearby nation following many years of advocacy by community representatives, who noted that initial interaction with isolated people could lead to entire communities being eliminated by sickness, poverty and hunger.

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

“Remote tribes are very susceptible—epidemiologically, any interaction may introduce diseases, and even the simplest ones might decimate them,” says a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any interaction or interference could be very harmful to their life and health as a society.”

For local residents of {