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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos was laboring in a tiny clearing deep in the Peruvian rainforest when he heard footsteps coming closer through the thick forest.

He realized he was hemmed in, and stood still.

“A single individual was standing, pointing using an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he noticed that I was present and I started to run.”

He ended up confronting members of the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the small village of Nueva Oceania—was virtually a local to these wandering tribe, who shun contact with outsiders.

An updated report from a advocacy organisation claims there are a minimum of 196 of what it calls “remote communities” in existence in the world. The group is considered to be the largest. The study claims half of these tribes may be eliminated within ten years if governments don't do further actions to defend them.

It argues the greatest risks stem from logging, mining or drilling for crude. Uncontacted groups are exceptionally at risk to basic sickness—therefore, the study says a risk is caused by exposure with religious missionaries and online personalities looking for clicks.

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

This settlement is a fishing hamlet of seven or eight families, sitting elevated on the edges of the local river in the center of the Peruvian jungle, half a day from the closest settlement by watercraft.

The area is not classified as a protected area for uncontacted groups, and deforestation operations operate here.

Tomas says that, at times, the noise of logging machinery can be noticed around the clock, and the tribe members are seeing their forest disturbed and ruined.

Within the village, inhabitants state they are conflicted. They are afraid of the tribal weapons but they hold strong admiration for their “brothers” dwelling in the forest and desire to safeguard them.

“Allow them to live in their own way, we are unable to modify their culture. That's why we preserve our separation,” says Tomas.

Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the Mascho Piro's livelihood, the risk of violence and the possibility that deforestation crews might subject the Mashco Piro to illnesses they have no defense to.

During a visit in the settlement, the tribe appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a young child, was in the forest collecting fruit when she detected them.

“We heard calls, sounds from others, a large number of them. As though it was a whole group calling out,” she shared with us.

This marked the initial occasion she had encountered the group and she ran. After sixty minutes, her thoughts was still throbbing from fear.

“Because there are deforestation crews and firms clearing the woodland they are fleeing, maybe due to terror and they end up close to us,” she stated. “It is unclear what their response may be towards us. This is what terrifies me.”

Recently, two individuals were attacked by the Mashco Piro while fishing. A single person was hit by an projectile to the abdomen. He recovered, but the other man was discovered lifeless days later with nine puncture marks in his body.

The Peruvian government has a strategy of non-contact with secluded communities, establishing it as illegal to commence contact with them.

The strategy began in a nearby nation following many years of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who observed that early interaction with remote tribes could lead to whole populations being wiped out by illness, poverty and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau people in the country made initial contact with the broader society, a significant portion of their community succumbed within a matter of years. During the 1990s, the Muruhanua people experienced the similar destiny.

“Remote tribes are highly at risk—epidemiologically, any exposure may spread diseases, and including the simplest ones might eliminate them,” states a representative from a tribal support group. “In cultural terms, any interaction or disruption could be extremely detrimental to their way of life and survival as a group.”

For those living nearby of {