Kin throughout the Woodland: The Fight to Protect an Isolated Rainforest Group

The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a tiny open space deep in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard movements drawing near through the dense forest.

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

“One person was standing, aiming using an projectile,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly he noticed that I was present and I started to run.”

He found himself face to face members of the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the modest village of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a neighbour to these itinerant people, who reject contact with outsiders.

A new report from a rights group claims there are at least 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” in existence globally. The group is considered to be the biggest. The report says 50% of these groups may be decimated within ten years unless authorities fail to take more measures to safeguard them.

The report asserts the biggest risks are from deforestation, digging or drilling for petroleum. Isolated tribes are extremely at risk to basic sickness—consequently, the report notes a danger is presented by exposure with evangelical missionaries and online personalities looking for clicks.

In recent times, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to residents.

The village is a fishermen's village of a handful of households, located high on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest, a ten-hour journey from the closest settlement by watercraft.

The territory is not recognised as a safeguarded area for uncontacted groups, and deforestation operations function here.

Tomas says that, sometimes, the sound of heavy equipment can be noticed around the clock, and the tribe members are witnessing their forest disrupted and ruined.

In Nueva Oceania, inhabitants state they are conflicted. They dread the projectiles but they hold deep admiration for their “relatives” who live in the woodland and desire to safeguard them.

“Let them live as they live, we are unable to change their way of life. This is why we maintain our space,” explains Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are worried about the destruction to the tribe's survival, the threat of violence and the likelihood that timber workers might expose the tribe to diseases they have no immunity to.

While we were in the village, the tribe appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a young daughter, was in the jungle picking produce when she heard them.

“There were calls, shouts from people, a large number of them. Like it was a whole group shouting,” she shared with us.

It was the first instance she had come across the Mashco Piro and she ran. Subsequently, her mind was continually racing from fear.

“Because exist deforestation crews and operations clearing the jungle they are fleeing, perhaps because of dread and they end up close to us,” she stated. “We don't know how they will behave towards us. This is what terrifies me.”

Recently, two loggers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while catching fish. A single person was struck by an projectile to the gut. He lived, but the other man was discovered dead days later with nine arrow wounds in his physique.

Authorities in Peru follows a policy of non-contact with remote tribes, making it prohibited to commence contact with them.

The strategy was first adopted in Brazil after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who saw that first interaction with remote tribes resulted to entire groups being eliminated by sickness, destitution and hunger.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in the country came into contact with the outside world, a significant portion of their people succumbed within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua community experienced the identical outcome.

“Remote tribes are extremely at risk—in terms of health, any contact may spread sicknesses, and including the most common illnesses could wipe them out,” says an advocate from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “Culturally too, any exposure or disruption may be very harmful to their existence and health as a society.”

For those living nearby of {