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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest open space far in the Peruvian jungle when he heard footsteps approaching through the dense jungle.

He became aware he was encircled, and halted.

“One person was standing, directing using an bow and arrow,” he states. “And somehow he noticed that I was present and I commenced to run.”

He ended up face to face the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—was almost a local to these nomadic individuals, who avoid engagement with outsiders.

A recent document issued by a advocacy group states there are no fewer than 196 termed “isolated tribes” remaining worldwide. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the biggest. It claims half of these communities may be eliminated in the next decade should administrations fail to take more to protect them.

The report asserts the biggest threats come from logging, mining or operations for petroleum. Remote communities are exceptionally susceptible to common disease—consequently, the report states a risk is caused by exposure with evangelical missionaries and online personalities looking for attention.

Recently, members of the tribe have been venturing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's hamlet of seven or eight clans, sitting high on the shores of the local river in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the nearest village by watercraft.

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

According to Tomas that, at times, the racket of logging machinery can be noticed continuously, and the Mashco Piro people are witnessing their woodland disrupted and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, people report they are conflicted. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess deep admiration for their “relatives” who live in the woodland and want to defend them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we are unable to alter their way of life. For this reason we maintain our distance,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the risk of violence and the possibility that deforestation crews might expose the tribe to illnesses they have no immunity to.

At the time in the village, the Mashco Piro appeared again. Letitia, a woman with a two-year-old child, was in the jungle collecting fruit when she noticed them.

“We heard shouting, sounds from people, many of them. As though it was a crowd calling out,” she shared with us.

This marked the first instance she had encountered the group and she escaped. An hour later, her head was continually throbbing from terror.

“Because there are deforestation crews and operations clearing the woodland they're running away, possibly due to terror and they end up close to us,” she said. “It is unclear how they might react to us. That is the thing that scares me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were attacked by the group while fishing. A single person was wounded by an bow to the abdomen. He lived, but the other man was located lifeless subsequently with several arrow wounds in his frame.

The Peruvian government maintains a strategy of non-contact with remote tribes, establishing it as illegal to start contact with them.

The strategy originated in Brazil after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who saw that first interaction with isolated people lead to entire communities being eliminated by disease, hardship and malnutrition.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau people in Peru first encountered with the broader society, 50% of their population succumbed within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community experienced the identical outcome.

“Remote tribes are extremely at risk—epidemiologically, any exposure could introduce sicknesses, and including the most common illnesses might wipe them out,” explains Issrail Aquisse from a local advocacy organization. “From a societal perspective, any contact or disruption may be extremely detrimental to their life and health as a group.”

For those living nearby of {