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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest clearing within in the Peruvian jungle when he detected sounds approaching through the thick woodland.

He became aware he was surrounded, and stood still.

“One person positioned, aiming with an bow and arrow,” he states. “Somehow he noticed of my presence and I started to run.”

He found himself encountering the Mashco Piro tribe. Over many years, Tomas—residing in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbor to these itinerant people, who shun interaction with foreigners.

A recent study by a rights group states there are no fewer than 196 of what it calls “remote communities” remaining globally. This tribe is thought to be the most numerous. The report says 50% of these tribes could be decimated within ten years unless authorities don't do further actions to defend them.

It argues the biggest threats stem from timber harvesting, mining or exploration for petroleum. Isolated tribes are extremely at risk to common disease—consequently, the report says a threat is presented by exposure with religious missionaries and social media influencers looking for engagement.

Lately, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, according to inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing village of several households, sitting atop on the shores of the Tauhamanu waterway deep within the of Peru Amazon, 10 hours from the most accessible village by canoe.

The territory is not classified as a preserved reserve for uncontacted groups, and deforestation operations function here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the racket of logging machinery can be noticed day and night, and the tribe members are seeing their jungle disturbed and ruined.

Within the village, residents say they are conflicted. They dread the tribal weapons but they also have strong regard for their “relatives” dwelling in the woodland and want to defend them.

“Let them live in their own way, we are unable to change their way of life. That's why we maintain our space,” says Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the damage to the tribe's survival, the danger of violence and the possibility that loggers might introduce the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the settlement, the group made their presence felt again. A young mother, a resident with a toddler child, was in the forest gathering food when she heard them.

“We detected shouting, sounds from people, a large number of them. Like there were a large gathering calling out,” she told us.

It was the initial occasion she had encountered the group and she ran. An hour later, her thoughts was still throbbing from fear.

“As there are loggers and companies clearing the woodland they're running away, perhaps out of fear and they come close to us,” she explained. “We don't know how they will behave towards us. This is what scares me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One man was hit by an bow to the gut. He survived, but the other man was discovered lifeless after several days with multiple puncture marks in his body.

The administration maintains a approach of avoiding interaction with secluded communities, rendering it prohibited to start encounters with them.

The strategy was first adopted in a nearby nation after decades of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who saw that early interaction with remote tribes resulted to entire communities being wiped out by sickness, destitution and starvation.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau community in the country first encountered with the broader society, a significant portion of their people died within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the same fate.

“Secluded communities are very susceptible—epidemiologically, any contact may spread sicknesses, and even the most common illnesses may eliminate them,” states Issrail Aquisse from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any contact or disruption may be highly damaging to their way of life and well-being as a society.”

For those living nearby of {