Rare new images show members of one of the world’s most isolated Indigenous tribes emerging from a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon where loggers have been encroaching on their land.
The Mashco Piro are thought to be the largest uncontacted tribe in the world, numbering more than 750 people, according to Survival International, a nonprofit advocating Indigenous rights.
They inhabit an area located between two natural reserves in Madre de Dios and usually do not leave the cover of the rainforest or communicate with outsiders.
But in recent weeks members of the reclusive tribe have been seen breaking cover to look for food and move away from the growing presence of loggers, Indigenous rights group Fenamad said.
The Mashco Piro were photographed at the end of June on the banks of a river in the Madre de Dios region in southeast Peru near the border with Brazil.
‘These incredible images show that a large number of isolated Mashco Piro live alone a few kilometers from where the loggers are about to start their operations,’ Survival International director Caroline Pearce said.
Alfredo Vargas Pio, head of Fenamad, said: ‘This is irrefutable evidence that many Mashco Piro live in this area, which the government has not only failed to protect but actually sold off to logging companies.
‘The logging workers could bring in new diseases which would wipe out the Mashco Piro, and there’s also a risk of violence on either side, so it is very important the territorial rights of the Mashco Piro are recognised and protected in law.’
More than 50 Mashco Piro people appeared in recent days near a village of the Yine people called Monte Salvado.
Another group of 17 appeared by the nearby village of Puerto Nuevo, according to Survival International.
The Peruvian government reported on June 28 that local residents had reported seeing Mashco Piro on the Las Piedras river, 90 miles from the city of Puerto Maldonado, the capital of Madre de Dios.
The Mashco Piro have also been sighted across the border in Brazil, said Rosa Padilha, at the Brazilian Catholic bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council in the state of Acre.
‘They flee from loggers on the Peruvian side,’ she said.
‘At this time of the year they appear on the beaches to take tracajá (Amazon turtle) eggs. That’s when we find their footprints on the sand. They leave behind a lot of turtle shells.
‘They are a people with no peace, restless, because they are always on the run.’
Several logging companies hold timber concessions inside the territory inhabited by the Mashco Piro.
One company, Canales Tahuamanu, has built more than 120 miles of roads for its logging trucks to extract timber, according to Survival International.
A Canales Tahuamanu representative in Lima did not respond to a request for comment.
The company is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, according to which it has 130,000 acres of forests in Madre de Dios to extract cedar and mahogany.
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