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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest open space deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he heard movements drawing near through the dense forest.

It dawned on him that he had been encircled, and froze.

“A single individual positioned, directing using an bow and arrow,” he states. “Unexpectedly he noticed of my presence and I started to escape.”

He ended up face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—who lives in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—was almost a local to these wandering individuals, who shun engagement with foreigners.

A new document issued by a human rights organisation claims exist no fewer than 196 termed “uncontacted groups” in existence worldwide. The group is believed to be the biggest. It states a significant portion of these groups may be eliminated in the next decade unless authorities don't do more to protect them.

It claims the most significant dangers come from logging, extraction or operations for oil. Isolated tribes are highly vulnerable to ordinary sickness—consequently, it says a threat is caused by interaction with proselytizers and online personalities looking for clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been appearing to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to locals.

Nueva Oceania is a angling hamlet of seven or eight clans, sitting atop on the edges of the local river deep within the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the most accessible settlement by watercraft.

The territory is not designated as a preserved zone for remote communities, and logging companies work here.

Tomas says that, on occasion, the racket of logging machinery can be heard around the clock, and the community are observing their forest damaged and ruined.

Among the locals, residents report they are conflicted. They are afraid of the projectiles but they hold deep respect for their “brothers” dwelling in the jungle and desire to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we can't modify their culture. That's why we maintain our space,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the tribe's survival, the threat of violence and the chance that loggers might subject the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

At the time in the village, the group made themselves known again. Letitia, a resident with a young daughter, was in the woodland gathering produce when she heard them.

“There were shouting, cries from others, numerous of them. As though there was a large gathering yelling,” she shared with us.

This marked the initial occasion she had come across the tribe and she escaped. Subsequently, her head was still racing from fear.

“As operate deforestation crews and firms clearing the forest they're running away, possibly out of fear and they come near us,” she said. “We don't know how they will behave with us. This is what terrifies me.”

In 2022, two individuals were confronted by the group while angling. One man was struck by an projectile to the gut. He recovered, but the second individual was found dead days later with nine arrow wounds in his physique.

Authorities in Peru has a strategy of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, rendering it illegal to start encounters with them.

This approach originated in the neighboring country following many years of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who observed that initial contact with remote tribes could lead to whole populations being wiped out by disease, poverty and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in the country first encountered with the world outside, half of their community perished within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people faced the similar destiny.

“Secluded communities are extremely at risk—in terms of health, any contact might spread illnesses, and even the simplest ones may wipe them out,” explains Issrail Aquisse from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or interference can be very harmful to their way of life and well-being as a society.”

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