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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest clearing deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he noticed footsteps approaching through the lush woodland.

He became aware that he stood surrounded, and froze.

“One was standing, pointing using an arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he became aware I was here and I commenced to run.”

He had come face to face the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—residing in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—had been almost a neighbor to these wandering tribe, who reject contact with foreigners.

A new document from a advocacy organisation states remain at least 196 of what it calls “remote communities” remaining worldwide. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the biggest. The study states a significant portion of these tribes might be decimated within ten years unless authorities fail to take further actions to defend them.

It claims the biggest dangers are from logging, extraction or operations for petroleum. Isolated tribes are extremely vulnerable to common disease—therefore, it states a risk is posed by contact with religious missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of clicks.

Recently, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, based on accounts from residents.

The village is a fishing hamlet of seven or eight households, located atop on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the most accessible village by canoe.

The territory is not recognised as a safeguarded zone for isolated tribes, and deforestation operations operate here.

Tomas reports that, sometimes, the racket of logging machinery can be detected around the clock, and the community are observing their forest disrupted and devastated.

Among the locals, residents state they are torn. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also possess strong respect for their “brothers” residing in the jungle and want to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live according to their traditions, we must not alter their traditions. This is why we preserve our space,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the threat of aggression and the chance that loggers might expose the tribe to illnesses they have no resistance to.

At the time in the community, the group made themselves known again. Letitia, a resident with a young daughter, was in the forest collecting produce when she noticed them.

“There were shouting, shouts from individuals, a large number of them. As if there were a whole group calling out,” she told us.

That was the first time she had met the tribe and she escaped. Subsequently, her thoughts was still throbbing from terror.

“As exist loggers and companies cutting down the forest they are escaping, maybe because of dread and they end up near us,” she said. “It is unclear how they might react with us. This is what terrifies me.”

Two years ago, two individuals were confronted by the tribe while fishing. A single person was struck by an bow to the abdomen. He survived, but the other person was discovered dead after several days with nine injuries in his frame.

Authorities in Peru maintains a approach of no engagement with remote tribes, making it illegal to start contact with them.

This approach was first adopted in a nearby nation after decades of advocacy by community representatives, who noted that early interaction with remote tribes could lead to entire communities being decimated by illness, poverty and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau people in the country came into contact with the world outside, a significant portion of their community died within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua community suffered the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are extremely vulnerable—in terms of health, any interaction could transmit diseases, and including the most common illnesses might wipe them out,” explains a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any contact or disruption can be extremely detrimental to their existence and survival as a group.”

For local residents of {