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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a small glade deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he noticed footsteps coming closer through the thick woodland.

He became aware he was encircled, and halted.

“A single individual positioned, aiming using an arrow,” he recalls. “And somehow he noticed that I was present and I commenced to escape.”

He had come face to face the Mashco Piro tribe. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as almost a neighbor to these itinerant tribe, who shun contact with outsiders.

A recent study issued by a advocacy organisation claims there are no fewer than 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” left in the world. This tribe is thought to be the largest. The report states a significant portion of these communities may be decimated over the coming ten years if governments don't do more to protect them.

It argues the biggest threats are from timber harvesting, digging or drilling for petroleum. Uncontacted groups are extremely susceptible to ordinary disease—consequently, the study notes a threat is posed by interaction with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers looking for clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania with greater frequency, based on accounts from inhabitants.

This settlement is a angling village of several families, sitting high on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway deep within the Peruvian jungle, a ten-hour journey from the closest village by watercraft.

This region is not recognised as a protected zone for isolated tribes, and timber firms operate here.

Tomas reports that, on occasion, the sound of industrial tools can be heard continuously, and the community are seeing their forest disturbed and destroyed.

Among the locals, residents report they are divided. They fear the Mashco Piro's arrows but they also possess deep regard for their “brothers” residing in the jungle and wish to safeguard them.

“Permit them to live in their own way, we can't alter their way of life. This is why we maintain our separation,” states Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the community's way of life, the risk of violence and the chance that timber workers might expose the community to diseases they have no immunity to.

During a visit in the community, the Mashco Piro made their presence felt again. Letitia, a woman with a two-year-old child, was in the woodland gathering fruit when she noticed them.

“We detected cries, cries from individuals, a large number of them. Like there were a crowd shouting,” she shared with us.

That was the first time she had met the group and she escaped. Subsequently, her thoughts was persistently pounding from anxiety.

“Because exist loggers and operations destroying the forest they are escaping, possibly because of dread and they arrive close to us,” she stated. “It is unclear what their response may be with us. That's what terrifies me.”

Recently, a pair of timber workers were assaulted by the group while fishing. One was hit by an arrow to the abdomen. He survived, but the second individual was found lifeless days later with multiple puncture marks in his frame.

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

The policy was first adopted in the neighboring country subsequent to prolonged of advocacy by tribal advocacy organizations, who saw that early interaction with remote tribes lead to whole populations being wiped out by disease, poverty and malnutrition.

Back in the eighties, when the Nahau tribe in Peru first encountered with the broader society, half of their people succumbed within a short period. A decade later, the Muruhanua tribe experienced the same fate.

“Secluded communities are extremely at risk—in terms of health, any contact may spread diseases, and even the basic infections might eliminate them,” explains a representative from a local advocacy organization. “In cultural terms, any contact or interference can be extremely detrimental to their existence and survival as a society.”

For those living nearby of {