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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a tiny clearing within in the Peruvian jungle when he heard footsteps drawing near through the lush woodland.

He became aware that he stood encircled, and stood still.

“One positioned, directing with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he noticed of my presence and I commenced to flee.”

He found himself face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—who lives in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as virtually a neighbor to these nomadic individuals, who shun contact with foreigners.

A new report from a advocacy group states exist a minimum of 196 termed “uncontacted groups” remaining worldwide. This tribe is believed to be the most numerous. It claims half of these communities might be eliminated in the next decade unless authorities fail to take further measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the most significant dangers are from timber harvesting, extraction or operations for crude. Uncontacted groups are highly susceptible to common illness—therefore, the report states a risk is posed by interaction with religious missionaries and digital content creators seeking clicks.

In recent times, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, as reported by locals.

Nueva Oceania is a angling hamlet of several clans, sitting high on the banks of the Tauhamanu River in the center of the Peruvian rainforest, half a day from the closest settlement by boat.

The area is not designated as a protected zone for isolated tribes, and timber firms work here.

According to Tomas that, sometimes, the noise of heavy equipment can be heard around the clock, and the tribe members are observing their forest disturbed and ruined.

Among the locals, inhabitants say they are torn. They dread the projectiles but they also possess strong admiration for their “kin” who live in the woodland and want to protect them.

“Let them live as they live, we are unable to change their way of life. This is why we keep our space,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the destruction to the community's way of life, the risk of conflict and the chance that timber workers might subject the Mashco Piro to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

While we were in the settlement, the group made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a toddler child, was in the jungle gathering produce when she detected them.

“We heard cries, shouts from people, many of them. Like there was a whole group calling out,” she shared with us.

This marked the initial occasion she had come across the group and she fled. Subsequently, her mind was still throbbing from fear.

“As operate timber workers and operations clearing the forest they're running away, possibly out of fear and they end up near us,” she explained. “It is unclear how they will behave to us. That's what terrifies me.”

Recently, two individuals were assaulted by the tribe while angling. One was struck by an arrow to the abdomen. He lived, but the other man was found deceased days later with multiple arrow wounds in his frame.

The Peruvian government maintains a policy of non-contact with isolated people, rendering it illegal to initiate encounters with them.

The strategy originated in a nearby nation subsequent to prolonged of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who saw that first contact with secluded communities lead to whole populations being eliminated by disease, destitution and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in Peru first encountered with the outside world, 50% of their people perished within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are extremely susceptible—in terms of health, any exposure could transmit illnesses, and including the simplest ones could wipe them out,” explains an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any interaction or intrusion could be very harmful to their way of life and well-being as a group.”

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