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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a tiny glade within in the of Peru Amazon when he detected sounds approaching through the dense jungle.

He became aware that he stood surrounded, and halted.

“A single individual positioned, directing using an arrow,” he remembers. “And somehow he noticed that I was present and I began to run.”

He had come confronting the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the small village of Nueva Oceania—was practically a neighbour to these itinerant tribe, who shun contact with foreigners.

A recent study by a human rights organization indicates remain a minimum of 196 of what it calls “remote communities” in existence in the world. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the largest. The study claims a significant portion of these communities could be wiped out in the next decade should administrations don't do more actions to defend them.

The report asserts the biggest dangers stem from deforestation, mining or drilling for crude. Uncontacted groups are extremely vulnerable to common illness—therefore, the report says a risk is caused by contact with religious missionaries and digital content creators in pursuit of attention.

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

Nueva Oceania is a fishing community of a handful of clans, perched elevated on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, 10 hours from the nearest village by canoe.

This region is not classified as a safeguarded area for remote communities, and timber firms work here.

Tomas says that, sometimes, the sound of logging machinery can be heard around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are observing their woodland disturbed and ruined.

Within the village, inhabitants report they are conflicted. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also have strong admiration for their “brothers” dwelling in the woodland and want to defend them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we must not change their traditions. That's why we preserve our distance,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the harm to the community's way of life, the threat of violence and the chance that deforestation crews might introduce the Mashco Piro to sicknesses they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the settlement, the group appeared again. A young mother, a resident with a toddler girl, was in the forest collecting fruit when she detected them.

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

It was the first time she had encountered the tribe and she ran. After sixty minutes, her head was persistently throbbing from terror.

“Because exist timber workers and operations cutting down the jungle they are escaping, possibly out of fear and they end up in proximity to us,” she said. “We don't know how they will behave towards us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

Two years ago, two individuals were attacked by the tribe while angling. A single person was hit by an projectile to the abdomen. He survived, but the other person was found lifeless days later with nine arrow wounds in his body.

The Peruvian government follows a policy of no engagement with secluded communities, rendering it prohibited to initiate interactions with them.

The strategy was first adopted in the neighboring country after decades of lobbying by indigenous rights groups, who noted that first interaction with isolated people resulted to entire communities being eliminated by illness, poverty and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau people in Peru came into contact with the outside world, half of their population died within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community suffered the similar destiny.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are extremely vulnerable—in terms of health, any contact may spread sicknesses, and including the basic infections may decimate them,” explains an advocate from a local advocacy organization. “From a societal perspective, any exposure or intrusion could be very harmful to their way of life and survival as a society.”

For local residents of {