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Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest open space within in the Peruvian jungle when he detected sounds drawing near through the dense jungle.

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

“One person positioned, pointing using an arrow,” he states. “Unexpectedly he became aware I was here and I commenced to escape.”

He ended up face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—was almost a neighbour to these nomadic tribe, who avoid engagement with strangers.

A new document by a human rights group claims remain no fewer than 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” left worldwide. The group is considered to be the most numerous. The study claims a significant portion of these groups might be decimated over the coming ten years unless authorities fail to take more actions to defend them.

The report asserts the greatest threats stem from deforestation, mining or drilling for crude. Uncontacted groups are exceptionally susceptible to ordinary illness—consequently, the study notes a risk is posed by contact with evangelical missionaries and digital content creators looking for clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been appearing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, as reported by locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing hamlet of a handful of families, perched elevated on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway deep within the Peruvian Amazon, 10 hours from the closest town by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a safeguarded zone for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations work here.

Tomas says that, sometimes, the noise of heavy equipment can be noticed around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are observing their jungle disturbed and destroyed.

Within the village, inhabitants state they are divided. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they hold deep respect for their “brothers” dwelling in the woodland and want to defend them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we can't modify their traditions. For this reason we keep our distance,” states Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the threat of violence and the possibility that timber workers might subject the tribe to diseases they have no resistance to.

While we were in the village, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a toddler child, was in the jungle collecting food when she noticed them.

“We heard cries, sounds from people, many of them. As though there was a crowd shouting,” she informed us.

That was the first instance she had come across the tribe and she fled. An hour later, her head was persistently pounding from anxiety.

“Since there are loggers and firms destroying the woodland they're running away, perhaps due to terror and they end up close to us,” she explained. “We are uncertain what their response may be towards us. That's what scares me.”

Two years ago, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the group while catching fish. One man was wounded by an bow to the abdomen. He lived, but the other person was found lifeless after several days with multiple arrow wounds in his physique.

The Peruvian government follows a policy of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, rendering it forbidden to initiate interactions with them.

This approach originated in Brazil following many years of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who saw that first contact with secluded communities could lead to entire groups being decimated by illness, hardship and starvation.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in the country made initial contact with the broader society, half of their community perished within a few years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely at risk—epidemiologically, any interaction may transmit illnesses, and even the most common illnesses might decimate them,” says an advocate from a local advocacy organization. “Culturally too, any exposure or intrusion may be very harmful to their existence and health as a society.”

For local residents of {