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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a modest clearing within in the of Peru jungle when he detected footsteps coming closer through the thick forest.

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

“A single individual positioned, aiming using an bow and arrow,” he recalls. “And somehow he became aware I was here and I started to escape.”

He had come encountering the Mashco Piro tribe. Over many years, Tomas—who lives in the small village of Nueva Oceania—served as practically a local to these nomadic individuals, who shun contact with foreigners.

A new study issued by a human rights organization states exist at least 196 described as “isolated tribes” in existence globally. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the largest. It states 50% of these tribes might be wiped out in the next decade unless authorities fail to take additional to protect them.

It argues the most significant threats are from timber harvesting, extraction or drilling for petroleum. Isolated tribes are extremely vulnerable to basic illness—as such, it says a risk is posed by contact with religious missionaries and digital content creators in pursuit of clicks.

Recently, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, based on accounts from inhabitants.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's village of a handful of households, sitting atop on the edges of the Tauhamanu River in the center of the Peruvian Amazon, a ten-hour journey from the most accessible town by canoe.

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

Tomas says that, at times, the sound of industrial tools can be heard around the clock, and the tribe members are witnessing their jungle disturbed and destroyed.

Within the village, residents say they are conflicted. They fear the projectiles but they also have profound admiration for their “relatives” dwelling in the jungle and desire to protect them.

“Let them live in their own way, we are unable to modify their culture. For this reason we maintain our distance,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the tribe's survival, the threat of aggression and the chance that loggers might introduce the tribe to illnesses they have no resistance to.

During a visit in the community, the group made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a toddler child, was in the jungle collecting produce when she noticed them.

“We detected cries, shouts from others, numerous of them. Like there was a whole group yelling,” she shared with us.

It was the first instance she had encountered the Mashco Piro and she fled. An hour later, her head was persistently pounding from terror.

“Because exist timber workers and companies destroying the jungle they are escaping, maybe out of fear and they come near us,” she said. “We are uncertain how they might react to us. That is the thing that scares me.”

Two years ago, a pair of timber workers were confronted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. A single person was wounded by an projectile to the stomach. He lived, but the other man was found dead days later with several arrow wounds in his frame.

The Peruvian government follows a policy of non-contact with remote tribes, rendering it illegal to start contact with them.

This approach began in the neighboring country after decades of advocacy by indigenous rights groups, who observed that early exposure with secluded communities could lead to whole populations being decimated by disease, hardship and hunger.

During the 1980s, when the Nahau people in the country made initial contact with the world outside, a significant portion of their people perished within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the same fate.

“Secluded communities are extremely vulnerable—from a disease perspective, any interaction may spread sicknesses, and including the simplest ones may wipe them out,” states Issrail Aquisse from a local advocacy organization. “Culturally too, any contact or disruption can be highly damaging to their life and well-being as a community.”

For those living nearby of {