Relatives within this Forest: This Fight to Defend an Secluded Rainforest Tribe

The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a tiny clearing within in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard footsteps coming closer through the lush woodland.

It dawned on him that he stood surrounded, and stood still.

“One positioned, pointing using an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “And somehow he noticed of my presence and I started to run.”

He had come encountering members of the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—who lives in the small settlement of Nueva Oceania—was almost a local to these itinerant tribe, who reject contact with outsiders.

An updated document issued by a rights organization indicates remain no fewer than 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” left worldwide. This tribe is believed to be the most numerous. It claims half of these groups could be decimated in the next decade unless authorities neglect to implement further actions to defend them.

The report asserts the most significant dangers come from logging, extraction or exploration for crude. Remote communities are extremely at risk to basic sickness—consequently, the report says a risk is caused by exposure with religious missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of clicks.

In recent times, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania more and more, based on accounts from residents.

Nueva Oceania is a fishing village of several clans, located atop on the edges of the local river deep within the Peruvian jungle, 10 hours from the most accessible town by watercraft.

The territory is not designated as a protected zone for isolated tribes, and logging companies work here.

Tomas says that, at times, the racket of logging machinery can be heard continuously, and the Mashco Piro people are observing their forest disturbed and devastated.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants say they are conflicted. They fear the tribal weapons but they also possess deep respect for their “kin” dwelling in the jungle and wish to defend them.

“Let them live as they live, we can't alter their traditions. For this reason we preserve our space,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the community's way of life, the threat of aggression and the likelihood that loggers might expose the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no resistance to.

While we were in the village, the tribe made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a two-year-old child, was in the jungle gathering fruit when she detected them.

“There were shouting, cries from individuals, many of them. Like there were a large gathering shouting,” she told us.

That was the initial occasion she had come across the tribe and she escaped. Subsequently, her head was persistently throbbing from terror.

“As operate loggers and operations destroying the woodland they are escaping, possibly because of dread and they end up in proximity to us,” she explained. “We are uncertain what their response may be to us. That's what frightens me.”

Recently, two individuals were confronted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One man was hit by an bow to the gut. He recovered, but the second individual was found deceased days later with several injuries in his physique.

The Peruvian government maintains a policy of non-contact with remote tribes, making it forbidden to initiate contact with them.

This approach began in the neighboring country following many years of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who noted that initial contact with remote tribes could lead to entire communities being wiped out by disease, poverty and starvation.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau people in Peru made initial contact with the world outside, 50% of their community perished within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community faced the similar destiny.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very susceptible—in terms of health, any interaction may spread sicknesses, and even the simplest ones may wipe them out,” states an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or interference can be extremely detrimental to their way of life and well-being as a group.”

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