Watch: World’s Largest Isolated Tribe Makes Rare Public Appearance

Rare photographs documented an appearance of a group of uncontacted tribespeople residing in the Peruvian Amazon—the Mashco Piro emerged from the thick seclusion of their territory. Pictures reveal a gathering of several members at the river bank exposed on the show that cause concern for their welfare.

An indigenous rights group in the region, FENAMAD, said that with ramping up logging in the region, this tribe is further being pushed outside of its traditional land. The Mashco Piro might well be pushed into settlements drawing on food and searching for a safer place.

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The photographs were taken in late June near a riverbank in Madre de Dios, a southeastern province of Peru that shares a border with Brazil. The charity Survival International said the pictures indicate “a large number of isolated Mashco Piro live alone a few kilometers from where the loggers are about to start their operations”.

Over 50 members of the Mashco Piro indigenous group appeared near the Yine village of Monte Salvado and another group of 17 was seen near the village of Puerto Nuevo, said the non-governmental organization that defends the rights of indigenous peoples. The Mashco Piro, who live between two natural reserves in the region of Madre de Dios, have long only rarely appeared and have little communication with others, including the Yine.

Several logging companies hold timber concessions in the Mashco Piro’s territory. One company, Canales Tahuamanu, has built over 200 kilometers (120 miles) in road to extract timber with logging trucks. The company is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council under an agreement monitoring 53,000 hectares (130,000 acres) of forest in Madre de Dios for the extraction of cedar and mahogany. A representative of Canales Tahuamanu in Lima did not respond to a request for comment.

The Peruvian government said on June 28 that Mashco Piro was seen by locals in the vicinity of the Las Piedras river, 150 kilometers from Puerto Maldonado, capital of region of Madre de Dios. There were also sightings across the border in Brazil. “They run away from the loggers on the Peruvian side. At this time of the year, they come to the beaches to catch tracajá (Amazon turtle) eggs. This is when we track footprints on the sand. They leave many turtle shells,” stated Rosa Padilha of the Indigenous Missionary Council of the Brazilian Catholic Bishops in Acre.

“They are a people with no peace, restless because they are always on the run,” Padilha added.