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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small open space within in the of Peru rainforest when he heard sounds approaching through the thick forest.

He became aware he was surrounded, and stood still.

“One was standing, aiming using an projectile,” he remembers. “Somehow he detected I was here and I commenced to flee.”

He ended up confronting the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—residing in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbour to these nomadic individuals, who reject contact with foreigners.

A new study by a human rights organization claims there are at least 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” left in the world. This tribe is believed to be the most numerous. It says a significant portion of these tribes could be decimated over the coming ten years unless authorities fail to take more measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the biggest threats come from timber harvesting, extraction or exploration for crude. Isolated tribes are highly vulnerable to common illness—consequently, the study states a threat is presented by contact with evangelical missionaries and digital content creators in pursuit of clicks.

Recently, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, based on accounts from locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's hamlet of several families, perched atop on the shores of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, 10 hours from the most accessible town by boat.

This region is not designated as a safeguarded area for uncontacted groups, and timber firms operate here.

Tomas says that, sometimes, the noise of logging machinery can be detected continuously, and the community are seeing their woodland disturbed and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, people say they are conflicted. They are afraid of the tribal weapons but they hold deep respect for their “relatives” residing in the forest and wish to defend them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we must not modify their way of life. That's why we maintain our distance,” states Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the tribe's survival, the threat of conflict and the likelihood that deforestation crews might introduce the Mashco Piro to sicknesses they have no defense to.

While we were in the community, the group appeared again. A young mother, a woman with a toddler girl, was in the jungle collecting food when she heard them.

“We detected shouting, cries from others, many of them. Like it was a whole group shouting,” she informed us.

It was the first time she had encountered the tribe and she ran. Subsequently, her mind was still pounding from terror.

“Because exist loggers and operations clearing the woodland they are escaping, perhaps due to terror and they arrive in proximity to us,” she stated. “We don't know what their response may be with us. This is what terrifies me.”

In 2022, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the tribe while catching fish. A single person was struck by an projectile to the abdomen. He lived, but the other person was discovered lifeless after several days with multiple injuries in his body.

The Peruvian government maintains a approach of no engagement with isolated people, making it illegal to initiate interactions with them.

The strategy was first adopted in Brazil following many years of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who saw that early exposure with remote tribes could lead to entire communities being eliminated by illness, destitution and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau community in Peru came into contact with the world outside, half of their people succumbed within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community experienced the similar destiny.

“Remote tribes are very at risk—from a disease perspective, any exposure might transmit diseases, and including the most common illnesses may decimate them,” says an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or intrusion may be highly damaging to their existence and survival as a group.”

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