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Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a modest open space within in the Peruvian rainforest when he noticed footsteps coming closer through the dense forest.

He became aware that he stood hemmed in, and stood still.

“One person was standing, pointing with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “And somehow he became aware that I was present and I started to escape.”

He ended up face to face the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a local to these nomadic individuals, who shun interaction with strangers.

A new document by a advocacy organization states exist at least 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” left globally. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the most numerous. It states 50% of these tribes might be decimated within ten years unless authorities neglect to implement further actions to defend them.

It claims the greatest risks stem from logging, digging or exploration for petroleum. Uncontacted groups are extremely vulnerable to basic illness—consequently, the report says a threat is posed by contact with evangelical missionaries and online personalities looking for engagement.

Recently, Mashco Piro people have been appearing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, based on accounts from inhabitants.

The village is a angling community of a handful of families, perched atop on the shores of the local river deep within the Peruvian rainforest, half a day from the most accessible village by canoe.

This region is not classified as a preserved area for isolated tribes, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas reports that, at times, the sound of heavy equipment can be detected continuously, and the community are witnessing their woodland disrupted and ruined.

Within the village, residents report they are divided. They fear the tribal weapons but they hold strong regard for their “relatives” residing in the forest and want to safeguard them.

“Let them live in their own way, we are unable to alter their culture. That's why we preserve our distance,” explains Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are worried about the harm to the community's way of life, the threat of aggression and the likelihood that loggers might introduce the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no resistance to.

At the time in the village, the tribe appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a toddler child, was in the forest gathering fruit when she noticed them.

“We heard cries, cries from individuals, a large number of them. Like there was a whole group calling out,” she told us.

That was the first instance she had met the tribe and she ran. An hour later, her thoughts was persistently racing from terror.

“Because exist deforestation crews and companies cutting down the woodland they are fleeing, possibly because of dread and they arrive in proximity to us,” she said. “It is unclear what their response may be with us. This is what terrifies me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were assaulted by the group while catching fish. A single person was hit by an bow to the stomach. He survived, but the other person was located lifeless days later with several arrow wounds in his frame.

Authorities in Peru has a policy of no engagement with remote tribes, establishing it as forbidden to start encounters with them.

The policy was first adopted in a nearby nation following many years of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that initial interaction with secluded communities could lead to entire groups being decimated by illness, poverty and starvation.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the broader society, a significant portion of their community died within a short period. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the similar destiny.

“Remote tribes are highly susceptible—epidemiologically, any exposure may spread sicknesses, and even the basic infections may eliminate them,” states a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or disruption could be extremely detrimental to their way of life and well-being as a group.”

For those living nearby of {