New Images Show Largest Uncontacted Indigenous Tribe on Earth Dangerously Close to Loggers in Peruvian Amazon

More than 50 Mashco Piro people have been sighted on the banks of the Las Piedras river in the Peruvian Amazon. Survival International

The Mashco Piro are an uncontacted Indigenous Tribe who live in the Peruvian Amazon. They have been sighted emerging from the rainforest more often recently as they try to avoid the increasing presence of loggers, according to FENAMAD, a local Indigenous rights group.

Incredible new images released on Tuesday show dozens of Mashco Piro people on the banks of the Las Piedras river, where they come in search of food and to distance themselves from the loggers who have invaded their territory.

“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’s very important that the territorial rights of the Mashco Piro are recognized and protected in law,” said FENAMAD President Alfredo Vargas Pio in a press release from Survival International.

Several companies have logging concessions inside the Mashco Piro territory, the closest of which is only a few miles from the location where the filming of the Tribe took place.

Advocates for the Mashco Piro say the logging concessions demonstrate the pressing need to revoke all logging licenses within the Tribe’s territory and recognize that it belongs to them.

Recently, more than 50 Mashco Piro have appeared near Monte Salvado — a village of the Yine People in Southeast Peru. Another group of 17 came near Puerto Nuevo, a neighboring village. The Yine, who speak a related language, have said the Mashco Piro are angry and denounce the loggers’ presence on their land.

Canales Tahuamanu is a logging company that operates within the territory of the Mashco Piro and has constructed more than 124 miles of logging roads. The company is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a certification given for companies that practice ethical and sustainable operations. Eight years ago, the Peruvian government acknowledged that Canales Tahuamanu is cutting down trees inside Mashco Piro territory.

“These incredible images show that very large numbers of uncontacted Mashco Piro people are living just a few miles from where loggers are poised to start operations. Indeed one logging company, Canales Tahuamanu, is already at work inside Mashco Piro territory, which the Mashco Piro have made clear they oppose,” said Caroline Pearce, director of Survival International, in the press release.

Survival International is calling for the withdrawal of FSC certification of Canales Tahuamanu’s operations. Nearly 9,000 people have lobbied the FSC to stop the timber operations within the Tribe’s territory.

When loggers — who wear orange jumpsuits — see Mashco Piro Tribal members, they do not report it, fearing their operations will be shut down, Survival International said on their website.

“The men wearing orange are bad people,” one Mashco Piro man told a Yine villager.

Many of the Yine villagers defend their Mashco Piro neighbors and plant food in a “chacra” – an extra garden — for them at the edge of the village.

“Yine people often hear the Mashco Piro before they see them – they whistle before they emerge from the forest, mimicking the high, thin, trill of a tinamou bird, a warning to stay away while they collect turtles’ eggs from the riverbank, or help themselves to fruit and vegetables,” Survival International’s website said.

The Mashco Piro — the planet’s largest uncontacted Tribe at more than 750 members — have good reason to avoid outsiders. Their ancestors have endured massacres and enslavement, and they are determined to defend their territory.

In 2002, the Peruvian government responded to lobbying by FENAMAD by creating the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve in order to protect the rainforest belonging to the Mashco Piro. Their territory crosses several river basins close to the Brazilian border.

However, the reserve only covers a third of the FENAMAD-proposed area, leaving large swaths of Mashco Piro Territory unprotected. The government of Peru sold much of the “protected” land for the logging of mahogany and other hardwoods to go on for decades.

“This is a humanitarian disaster in the making – it’s absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco Piro’s territory is properly protected at last. The FSC must cancel its certification of Canales Tahuamanu immediately – failure to do so will make a mockery of the entire certification system,” Pearce said in the press release.

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