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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest open space far in the of Peru Amazon when he noticed footsteps drawing near through the dense jungle.

He realized that he stood hemmed in, and halted.

“One person was standing, aiming with an arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he detected that I was present and I commenced to run.”

He ended up confronting the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the modest settlement of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbour to these itinerant individuals, who shun interaction with foreigners.

A recent document from a human rights organization states exist a minimum of 196 termed “uncontacted groups” left worldwide. This tribe is thought to be the most numerous. It states half of these communities may be decimated within ten years if governments fail to take further measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the greatest threats stem from logging, mining or drilling for crude. Isolated tribes are extremely susceptible to ordinary illness—consequently, the study says a risk is posed by interaction with evangelical missionaries and online personalities seeking clicks.

In recent times, members of the tribe have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, based on accounts from inhabitants.

This settlement is a fishing hamlet of a handful of clans, perched elevated on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the nearest village by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a safeguarded area for uncontacted groups, and timber firms function here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the sound of industrial tools can be noticed continuously, and the community are witnessing their forest disturbed and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, residents report they are conflicted. They dread the tribal weapons but they hold profound admiration for their “kin” who live in the forest and want to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't alter their traditions. For this reason we preserve our space,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the community's way of life, the danger of aggression and the likelihood that loggers might subject the community to illnesses they have no defense to.

While we were in the settlement, the group made their presence felt again. A young mother, a woman with a toddler child, was in the jungle gathering fruit when she noticed them.

“We detected calls, shouts from individuals, numerous of them. Like it was a large gathering yelling,” she shared with us.

This marked the initial occasion she had come across the Mashco Piro and she ran. Subsequently, her mind was persistently racing from anxiety.

“Since operate deforestation crews and operations cutting down the jungle they are fleeing, possibly out of fear and they come close to us,” she explained. “We are uncertain how they might react towards us. This is what frightens me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the tribe while fishing. A single person was hit by an projectile to the abdomen. He lived, but the second individual was located dead days later with several puncture marks in his frame.

Authorities in Peru has a policy of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, making it forbidden to start interactions with them.

This approach began in Brazil after decades of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who saw that early exposure with secluded communities lead to entire communities being wiped out by disease, hardship and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau community in the country first encountered with the world outside, half of their people died within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the same fate.

“Secluded communities are very vulnerable—epidemiologically, any contact may transmit illnesses, and even the simplest ones could wipe them out,” states a representative from a tribal support group. “Culturally too, any contact or intrusion can be highly damaging to their life and survival as a group.”

For local residents of {