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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest glade deep in the Peruvian jungle when he detected sounds approaching through the thick woodland.

It dawned on him he was encircled, and stood still.

“One stood, pointing with an projectile,” he remembers. “And somehow he detected I was here and I began to escape.”

He found himself face to face the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—residing in the tiny village of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a neighbour to these wandering people, who avoid interaction with foreigners.

A new report from a rights organisation indicates there are a minimum of 196 termed “uncontacted groups” left worldwide. The group is thought to be the biggest. The study states 50% of these communities might be eliminated in the next decade should administrations fail to take further measures to safeguard them.

It argues the greatest risks are from timber harvesting, digging or operations for petroleum. Isolated tribes are exceptionally at risk to ordinary disease—therefore, the study states a threat is posed by contact with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers in pursuit of clicks.

In recent times, members of the tribe have been venturing to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to residents.

This settlement is a fishermen's village of several clans, sitting high on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway deep within the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the nearest village by boat.

The area is not recognised as a safeguarded reserve for remote communities, and logging companies function here.

Tomas says that, at times, the sound of heavy equipment can be noticed around the clock, and the community are seeing their forest disturbed and ruined.

In Nueva Oceania, residents report they are torn. They are afraid of the tribal weapons but they also have deep admiration for their “brothers” dwelling in the jungle and want to defend them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we must not change their way of life. That's why we maintain our distance,” explains Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are anxious about the harm to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the risk of aggression and the chance that timber workers might subject the Mashco Piro to sicknesses they have no immunity to.

While we were in the village, the Mashco Piro made themselves known again. A young mother, a young mother with a young child, was in the woodland collecting fruit when she noticed them.

“We heard shouting, shouts from people, a large number of them. As though it was a large gathering shouting,” she told us.

This marked the first time she had encountered the tribe and she fled. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was persistently throbbing from anxiety.

“As there are timber workers and firms destroying the woodland they are escaping, possibly because of dread and they arrive near us,” she said. “We are uncertain how they might react towards us. That is the thing that frightens me.”

Two years ago, two loggers were attacked by the tribe while catching fish. One was struck by an bow to the stomach. He recovered, but the other person was located dead subsequently with nine injuries in his frame.

The administration has a policy of no engagement with secluded communities, establishing it as prohibited to commence encounters with them.

The policy began in Brazil following many years of campaigning by community representatives, who saw that early interaction with secluded communities resulted to whole populations being eliminated by sickness, poverty and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in the country made initial contact with the broader society, 50% of their people died within a short period. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the identical outcome.

“Secluded communities are highly vulnerable—in terms of health, any exposure might transmit sicknesses, and even the basic infections might wipe them out,” states a representative from a local advocacy organization. “In cultural terms, any contact or intrusion can be highly damaging to their way of life and survival as a group.”

For local residents of {