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Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a tiny open space far in the Peruvian Amazon when he heard sounds coming closer through the thick woodland.

He realized that he stood hemmed in, and froze.

“A single individual stood, aiming with an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Somehow he detected that I was present and I began to escape.”

He ended up encountering the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—was practically a neighbour to these itinerant people, who avoid contact with foreigners.

A recent study issued by a human rights organization states there are no fewer than 196 termed “remote communities” left worldwide. This tribe is considered to be the largest. It claims a significant portion of these groups could be decimated within ten years unless authorities don't do additional to protect them.

The report asserts the most significant threats stem from deforestation, mining or exploration for oil. Remote communities are highly vulnerable to common sickness—as such, it notes a risk is presented by exposure with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of clicks.

Lately, members of the tribe have been venturing to Nueva Oceania more and more, based on accounts from locals.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's village of a handful of families, located high on the banks of the local river deep within the of Peru Amazon, half a day from the most accessible town by watercraft.

The territory is not classified as a safeguarded reserve for remote communities, and timber firms work here.

Tomas says that, sometimes, the racket of industrial tools can be noticed around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their woodland disrupted and ruined.

Within the village, inhabitants state they are divided. They are afraid of the Mashco Piro's arrows but they hold strong respect for their “relatives” dwelling in the woodland and desire to protect them.

“Let them live according to their traditions, we can't modify their culture. That's why we preserve our distance,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the community's way of life, the threat of aggression and the chance that timber workers might subject the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no immunity to.

While we were in the community, the group made themselves known again. A young mother, a resident with a two-year-old girl, was in the woodland gathering food when she heard them.

“We heard shouting, shouts from others, a large number of them. Like there were a whole group yelling,” she shared with us.

This marked the first time she had met the tribe and she fled. After sixty minutes, her head was continually throbbing from anxiety.

“Because operate timber workers and operations cutting down the forest they are escaping, perhaps out of fear and they end up in proximity to us,” she explained. “We are uncertain how they might react towards us. This is what frightens me.”

Two years ago, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One was struck by an bow to the gut. He survived, but the other man was found lifeless after several days with nine arrow wounds in his frame.

The Peruvian government maintains a approach of avoiding interaction with remote tribes, rendering it prohibited to initiate contact with them.

The policy was first adopted in a nearby nation following many years of lobbying by community representatives, who saw that early interaction with secluded communities lead to entire communities being decimated by illness, hardship and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau people in the country first encountered with the outside world, 50% of their population died within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very susceptible—from a disease perspective, any contact could transmit sicknesses, and even the basic infections might eliminate them,” says a representative from a tribal support group. “Culturally too, any exposure or interference may be extremely detrimental to their life and well-being as a society.”

For local residents of {