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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small clearing deep in the of Peru Amazon when he heard movements approaching through the dense forest.

He realized that he had been encircled, and halted.

“One positioned, pointing using an arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he detected that I was present and I began to run.”

He found himself confronting members of the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbour to these nomadic people, who reject interaction with strangers.

A new study by a rights organization states remain a minimum of 196 termed “uncontacted groups” left globally. The group is considered to be the largest. The study says a significant portion of these groups might be decimated over the coming ten years unless authorities don't do additional to protect them.

It claims the biggest dangers come from timber harvesting, extraction or exploration for crude. Isolated tribes are exceptionally susceptible to ordinary sickness—therefore, the report notes a threat is caused by contact with religious missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of attention.

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

Nueva Oceania is a angling hamlet of several families, located atop on the banks of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest, half a day from the closest village by watercraft.

The area is not designated as a preserved reserve for uncontacted groups, and logging companies function here.

Tomas reports that, at times, the sound of industrial tools can be noticed day and night, and the tribe members are observing their woodland disrupted and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants report they are divided. They are afraid of the tribal weapons but they also have deep regard for their “brothers” dwelling in the forest and wish to protect them.

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

The people in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the community's way of life, the threat of conflict and the chance that loggers might introduce the community to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

While we were in the community, the tribe made themselves known again. A young mother, a young mother with a toddler child, was in the woodland gathering food when she noticed them.

“There were cries, shouts from people, a large number of them. As if it was a whole group yelling,” she told us.

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

“As there are loggers and companies cutting down the woodland they're running away, perhaps due to terror and they come near us,” she explained. “We are uncertain how they will behave towards us. This is what frightens me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the tribe while catching fish. A single person was hit by an projectile to the stomach. He lived, but the second individual was found deceased days later with nine injuries in his physique.

The Peruvian government has a strategy of avoiding interaction with isolated people, rendering it illegal to commence interactions with them.

This approach was first adopted in Brazil following many years of campaigning by community representatives, who observed that initial interaction with isolated people could lead to whole populations being eliminated by illness, destitution and malnutrition.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau people in Peru came into contact with the world outside, 50% of their population died within a short period. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe suffered the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very vulnerable—from a disease perspective, any exposure might transmit illnesses, and even the basic infections might wipe them out,” says an advocate from a tribal support group. “From a societal perspective, any interaction or disruption could be very harmful to their way of life and survival as a community.”

For those living nearby of {