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Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small open space within in the Peruvian jungle when he detected movements coming closer through the thick jungle.

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

“A single individual stood, directing using an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he noticed I was here and I began to run.”

He had come face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—dwelling in the small community of Nueva Oceania—served as almost a local to these wandering people, who avoid contact with foreigners.

A recent study by a rights organization claims exist no fewer than 196 described as “remote communities” remaining worldwide. The Mashco Piro is considered to be the biggest. The report states half of these communities could be wiped out over the coming ten years unless authorities neglect to implement additional measures to safeguard them.

It argues the most significant dangers come from logging, extraction or exploration for oil. Isolated tribes are highly susceptible to basic disease—consequently, the study states a threat is posed by interaction with proselytizers and social media influencers seeking clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been appearing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to locals.

This settlement is a fishing community of seven or eight clans, perched atop on the edges of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the nearest settlement by boat.

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

Tomas says that, on occasion, the noise of industrial tools can be noticed around the clock, and the community are witnessing their forest disrupted and ruined.

Among the locals, residents state they are conflicted. They fear the tribal weapons but they also have strong respect for their “relatives” who live in the jungle and want to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we are unable to modify their way of life. This is why we preserve our distance,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the danger of violence and the likelihood that timber workers might introduce the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

At the time in the settlement, the tribe made their presence felt again. A young mother, a young mother with a young child, was in the woodland collecting food when she heard them.

“We detected cries, cries from others, numerous of them. As if it was a large gathering yelling,” she informed us.

It was the initial occasion she had met the tribe and she ran. After sixty minutes, her mind was persistently pounding from terror.

“As operate timber workers and operations clearing the jungle they're running away, possibly out of fear and they arrive near us,” she explained. “It is unclear how they will behave with us. This is what frightens me.”

Recently, two loggers were attacked by the tribe while fishing. A single person was struck by an bow to the gut. He survived, but the second individual was found lifeless after several days with nine arrow wounds in his frame.

Authorities in Peru maintains a approach of no engagement with isolated people, rendering it illegal to commence encounters with them.

This approach originated in Brazil following many years of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who noted that first exposure with isolated people could lead to entire communities being eliminated by disease, hardship and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the outside world, a significant portion of their people succumbed within a short period. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community experienced the same fate.

“Remote tribes are extremely vulnerable—epidemiologically, any interaction may spread illnesses, and even the simplest ones might eliminate them,” states Issrail Aquisse from a tribal support group. “From a societal perspective, any contact or disruption can be highly damaging to their life and health as a society.”

For local residents of {