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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small open space within in the Peruvian Amazon when he noticed footsteps approaching through the dense forest.

He became aware that he stood encircled, and stood still.

“One person was standing, pointing with an projectile,” he recalls. “And somehow he noticed that I was present and I began to run.”

He had come face to face the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbour to these itinerant individuals, who shun engagement with outsiders.

A recent document by a rights organization claims there are no fewer than 196 termed “remote communities” remaining globally. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the biggest. The report claims a significant portion of these tribes might be decimated within ten years if governments don't do further to protect them.

It argues the most significant risks come from logging, extraction or operations for crude. Remote communities are extremely vulnerable to ordinary disease—consequently, the study notes a danger is presented by interaction with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for engagement.

In recent times, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, based on accounts from residents.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing hamlet of a handful of families, located elevated on the shores of the local river deep within the of Peru jungle, half a day from the closest village by watercraft.

The area is not designated as a safeguarded zone for isolated tribes, and logging companies operate here.

According to Tomas that, on occasion, the racket of heavy equipment can be noticed continuously, and the tribe members are observing their forest damaged and devastated.

Among the locals, residents say they are torn. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also have profound respect for their “brothers” who live in the jungle and want to protect them.

“Let them live in their own way, we are unable to modify their way of life. This is why we maintain our space,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the danger of conflict and the likelihood that timber workers might subject the tribe to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

At the time in the village, the tribe made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a young girl, was in the forest collecting fruit when she heard them.

“We detected cries, sounds from others, a large number of them. Like it was a crowd calling out,” she informed us.

This marked the initial occasion she had come across the group and she ran. An hour later, her mind was still racing from anxiety.

“Since operate loggers and operations cutting down the forest they're running away, perhaps out of fear and they arrive close to us,” she said. “We are uncertain what their response may be towards us. That is the thing that scares me.”

Two years ago, two loggers were attacked by the tribe while angling. A single person was wounded by an projectile to the abdomen. He recovered, but the second individual was discovered dead subsequently with several injuries in his body.

Authorities in Peru maintains a approach of avoiding interaction with isolated people, establishing it as prohibited to commence contact with them.

This approach began in the neighboring country following many years of campaigning by community representatives, who observed that initial contact with isolated people resulted to whole populations being eliminated by illness, destitution and hunger.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in Peru first encountered with the world outside, 50% of their people perished within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua community faced the identical outcome.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are highly vulnerable—in terms of health, any contact could spread diseases, and including the basic infections could decimate them,” says a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any exposure or intrusion may be very harmful to their existence and health as a group.”

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