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A man named Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a small glade far in the of Peru rainforest when he noticed movements approaching through the dense forest.

He realized that he stood surrounded, and stood still.

“One person stood, directing using an arrow,” he recalls. “And somehow he detected I was here and I commenced to run.”

He ended up encountering members of the Mashco Piro. Over many years, Tomas—who lives in the tiny community of Nueva Oceania—had been practically a local to these wandering individuals, who shun interaction with strangers.

A new study from a advocacy organisation states exist a minimum of 196 termed “remote communities” in existence globally. The group is believed to be the largest. The study states 50% of these communities might be wiped out within ten years if governments fail to take further actions to defend them.

It claims the most significant threats come from deforestation, mining or operations for petroleum. Remote communities are extremely vulnerable to common disease—consequently, the study says a threat is presented by interaction with religious missionaries and digital content creators in pursuit of engagement.

Lately, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to locals.

The village is a fishing village of several families, perched high on the edges of the Tauhamanu River in the center of the Peruvian rainforest, half a day from the most accessible town by watercraft.

This region is not classified as a preserved zone for remote communities, and deforestation operations function here.

Tomas says that, on occasion, the sound of industrial tools can be heard day and night, and the Mashco Piro people are observing their woodland damaged and ruined.

Among the locals, people say they are torn. They fear the projectiles but they also possess profound respect for their “relatives” dwelling in the jungle and desire to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live as they live, we must not alter their way of life. That's why we keep our separation,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the danger of aggression and the chance that timber workers might introduce the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

At the time in the community, the group appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a woman with a toddler child, was in the woodland picking food when she detected them.

“We heard cries, sounds from individuals, numerous of them. Like there was a large gathering calling out,” she told us.

That was the first instance she had encountered the group and she fled. An hour later, her mind was persistently racing from anxiety.

“Since exist timber workers and firms destroying the woodland they are fleeing, maybe out of fear and they arrive in proximity to us,” she said. “We are uncertain what their response may be towards us. This is what frightens me.”

Recently, two individuals were attacked by the group while fishing. One man was hit by an bow to the abdomen. He recovered, but the other person was located deceased days later with nine injuries in his physique.

Authorities in Peru maintains a strategy of no engagement with secluded communities, rendering it illegal to commence encounters with them.

The policy began in Brazil after decades of campaigning by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that first interaction with secluded communities lead to entire communities being wiped out by illness, hardship and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau community in the country came into contact with the world outside, a significant portion of their population perished within a few years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people faced the same fate.

“Secluded communities are very susceptible—from a disease perspective, any contact may introduce illnesses, and including the most common illnesses could eliminate them,” explains Issrail Aquisse from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any contact or intrusion can be very harmful to their way of life and survival as a community.”

For those living nearby of {