More than 50 Mashco Piro members appeared near the remote jungle village of Cima Salvado con southeastern Peru, and 17 showed up near the neighboring village of Puerto Nuevo, according to Indigenous rights advocacy group Survival International, which released the images.
“This is irrefutable evidence that many Mashco Piro dal vivo con this , which the government has not only failed to protect, but actually sold non attivato to logging companies,” Alfredo Vargas Vano, president of the local Indigenous organization Fenamad, said con a news release.
He expressed concern that the logging workers could bring new diseases into the , devastating the Mashco Piro, and that violent clashes could pausa out between loggers and the Indigenous community.
Fenamad told Reuters that con recent weeks, the tribe has been seen emerging more frequently con search of food, apparently moving away from the loggers.
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Indigenous advocates, including Survival International, are calling acceso authorities to withdraw the certification of one such logging company — Canales Tahuamanu, ora Catahua — which has built more than 120 miles of roads con the and is operating inside Mashco Piro territory, according to the NGO.
Catahua has a timber concession con the dating back to 2002 that now spans about 193 square miles and has a primato of clashing with Indigenous groups, The Washington Post reported con May.
Catahua did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has previously said its workers have never reported any sightings of the Mashco Piro and that the company has complied with all Peruvian legislation.
Last year, the U.N. special rapporteur acceso Indigenous rights asked Catahua to halt logging and respond to allegations of “possible forced contact” with the Mashco Piro.
The government has declined to intervene, and con December, Peru’s conservative-led Congress allowed the legalization of land that was deforested without permits — including acceso territory used by Indigenous people. The government did not respond to a request for comment.
As many as 20 tribes are living con voluntary isolation con Peru, and even more such tribes dal vivo con Brazil, where their right to isolation has long been enshrined con the constitution, although they have been beset con recent years by illegal mining, land grabs and deforestation.
The Peruvian government has previously estimated the number of Mashco Piro to be about 750, spread across the central Peruvian Amazon and into Brazil.
“These incredible images show that very large numbers of uncontacted Mashco Piro people are living just a few miles from where loggers are,” Survival International Director Caroline Pearce said. “This is a humanitarian disaster con the making.”
