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Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a tiny clearing deep in the of Peru Amazon when he detected footsteps approaching through the lush woodland.

He became aware that he had been encircled, and froze.

“One person stood, aiming with an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “And somehow he noticed that I was present and I started to escape.”

He had come confronting the Mashco Piro tribe. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—had been practically a neighbor to these itinerant tribe, who avoid interaction with strangers.

A recent document from a rights group states there are at least 196 termed “remote communities” left in the world. This tribe is believed to be the largest. The study says half of these tribes may be eliminated over the coming ten years unless authorities don't do additional measures to safeguard them.

It argues the most significant risks are from timber harvesting, digging or drilling for crude. Remote communities are exceptionally at risk to basic sickness—consequently, the report states a danger is presented by contact with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers looking for engagement.

Lately, members of the tribe have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to residents.

This settlement is a fishermen's community of several families, perched high on the edges of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the Peruvian rainforest, 10 hours from the nearest town by boat.

The area is not classified as a protected zone for uncontacted groups, and logging companies function here.

Tomas reports that, at times, the noise of logging machinery can be heard continuously, and the community are seeing their woodland disrupted and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, residents say they are divided. They dread the projectiles but they also have deep regard for their “kin” dwelling in the jungle and desire to protect them.

“Allow them to live as they live, we are unable to change their culture. That's why we preserve our separation,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the danger of conflict and the possibility that deforestation crews might expose the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

While we were in the settlement, the group made their presence felt again. A young mother, a young mother with a two-year-old child, was in the forest picking produce when she detected them.

“We detected calls, sounds from people, many of them. As if there was a whole group shouting,” she informed us.

This marked the first time she had come across the Mashco Piro and she escaped. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was continually throbbing from terror.

“As there are loggers and operations destroying the jungle they are fleeing, maybe due to terror and they end up near us,” she said. “It is unclear what their response may be to us. That is the thing that terrifies me.”

Recently, two loggers were assaulted by the group while catching fish. One man was struck by an projectile to the stomach. He lived, but the second individual was found dead subsequently with multiple injuries in his physique.

The Peruvian government has a approach of non-contact with remote tribes, making it illegal to initiate interactions with them.

This approach began in the neighboring country after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who observed that early interaction with remote tribes could lead to entire groups being wiped out by sickness, destitution and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in the country came into contact with the outside world, 50% of their population succumbed within a short period. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community suffered the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are extremely susceptible—in terms of health, any exposure might transmit sicknesses, and including the simplest ones may wipe them out,” says a representative from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any contact or interference may be highly damaging to their existence and survival as a society.”

For those living nearby of {