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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a tiny glade within in the Peruvian Amazon when he heard sounds coming closer through the lush woodland.

He became aware that he had been hemmed in, and froze.

“A single individual stood, pointing with an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he became aware of my presence and I began to run.”

He ended up encountering members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—who lives in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbour to these nomadic people, who avoid interaction with foreigners.

A recent report from a human rights group states exist no fewer than 196 termed “remote communities” left worldwide. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the largest. It states 50% of these groups may be decimated in the next decade if governments don't do further actions to defend them.

It argues the most significant risks are from deforestation, digging or exploration for petroleum. Remote communities are exceptionally vulnerable to ordinary sickness—consequently, it says a threat is posed by exposure with evangelical missionaries and digital content creators looking for clicks.

Lately, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to locals.

This settlement is a angling hamlet of a handful of clans, sitting atop on the edges of the local river deep within the Peruvian rainforest, 10 hours from the most accessible town by boat.

The territory is not classified as a preserved zone for isolated tribes, and logging companies work here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the sound of industrial tools can be detected day and night, and the community are observing their woodland disturbed and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants state they are conflicted. They dread the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have profound respect for their “brothers” residing in the woodland and wish to defend them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't alter their culture. That's why we preserve our distance,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the community's way of life, the risk of aggression and the chance that deforestation crews might expose the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

While we were in the community, the Mashco Piro made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a toddler child, was in the jungle picking food when she noticed them.

“There were shouting, sounds from people, a large number of them. As if there was a large gathering shouting,” she told us.

It was the first instance she had encountered the Mashco Piro and she ran. Subsequently, her head was still throbbing from fear.

“Because operate loggers and companies destroying the forest they are fleeing, possibly out of fear and they end up close to us,” she explained. “We don't know what their response may be to us. That's what frightens me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were assaulted by the tribe while fishing. A single person was wounded by an projectile to the gut. He survived, but the other person was discovered lifeless after several days with nine arrow wounds in his physique.

The Peruvian government follows a strategy of non-contact with secluded communities, rendering it forbidden to start encounters with them.

The strategy was first adopted in Brazil after decades of lobbying by tribal advocacy organizations, who saw that early contact with secluded communities lead to entire communities being wiped out by illness, hardship and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country first encountered with the broader society, 50% of their people succumbed within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the similar destiny.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely susceptible—epidemiologically, any interaction might spread illnesses, and including the simplest ones might decimate them,” says a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any exposure or interference can be highly damaging to their existence and health as a group.”

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