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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small clearing within in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard sounds drawing near through the dense jungle.

He realized he was surrounded, and halted.

“One person stood, directing with an arrow,” he recalls. “Somehow he became aware that I was present and I began to run.”

He found himself confronting the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—residing in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—had been virtually a neighbor to these itinerant individuals, who reject engagement with outsiders.

An updated document by a rights organisation states there are a minimum of 196 described as “remote communities” in existence globally. The group is considered to be the most numerous. The report claims half of these tribes could be decimated over the coming ten years if governments neglect to implement further measures to safeguard them.

It argues the most significant risks are from logging, digging or drilling for petroleum. Isolated tribes are highly vulnerable to basic disease—as such, the study states a risk is posed by contact with religious missionaries and online personalities in pursuit of clicks.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to residents.

This settlement is a fishermen's community of several families, sitting high on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the closest town by canoe.

This region is not recognised as a preserved area for uncontacted groups, and deforestation operations operate here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the noise of logging machinery can be noticed around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their forest disrupted and devastated.

Among the locals, people report they are torn. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have strong admiration for their “kin” dwelling in the jungle and want to defend them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we must not change their way of life. For this reason we preserve our space,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the risk of violence and the likelihood that deforestation crews might expose the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no defense to.

While we were in the community, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. Letitia, a woman with a two-year-old daughter, was in the forest picking produce when she noticed them.

“There were shouting, cries from individuals, many of them. As though it was a crowd yelling,” she shared with us.

That was the first instance she had met the group and she escaped. Subsequently, her thoughts was continually throbbing from anxiety.

“Because there are deforestation crews and companies clearing the forest they are escaping, possibly due to terror and they end up in proximity to us,” she stated. “It is unclear how they might react to us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

Recently, two individuals were assaulted by the Mashco Piro while catching fish. A single person was wounded by an bow to the abdomen. He recovered, but the other man was found deceased after several days with multiple puncture marks in his body.

The Peruvian government follows a policy of non-contact with remote tribes, making it prohibited to start contact with them.

The strategy was first adopted in a nearby nation following many years of campaigning by community representatives, who saw that initial interaction with secluded communities lead to entire groups being wiped out by sickness, destitution and starvation.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in the country first encountered with the outside world, a significant portion of their people perished within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are very vulnerable—in terms of health, any contact may transmit illnesses, and including the basic infections could wipe them out,” explains a representative from a local advocacy organization. “Culturally too, any exposure or intrusion could be extremely detrimental to their life and survival as a society.”

For those living nearby of {