Remarkable Video, Images Show World’s Largest Uncontacted Indigenous Tribe

Remarkable, strikingly rare images and video obtained by the indigenous rights nonprofit Survival International show the daily routine of an uncontacted Indigenous tribe, which has come “dangerously close” to a logging site.

Throughout this week, more than 50 members of Peru’s Mashco Piro, believed to be the largest uncontacted tribe in the world, have been seen at the Las Piedras River near the Yine village of Monte Salvado. 17 Mascho Piro also ventured into the nearby Yine village of Puerto Nuevo in recent days. The Yine, an uncontacted tribe which speaks a variant of the Mashco Piro language, have previously reported that the Mascho Piro’s are “angrily denounced” loggers encroaching on their land.

The tribe emerged in search of food, and to wade in the river. The pictures offer an astonishing, heretofore-unseen glimpse at the daily lives of the Mascho Piro people.

Experts and authorities are sounding the alarm due to the loggers’ “dangerously close” proximity to the Indigenous tribe. In addition to felling trees on the tribe's land, the loggers risk bringing diseases which could kill off the community.

Caroline Pearce, director of Survival International, called the situation “a humanitarian disaster in the making.”

“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,” Pearce explained. “Indeed one logging company, Canales Tahuamanu, is already at work inside Mashco Piro territory, which the Mashco Piro have made clear they oppose.”

According to Survival International, the company Canales Tahuamanu has built about 193 miles of roads within Mascho Piro territory for logging trucks to collect timber. Canales Tahuamanu was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for “its supposedly sustainable and ethical operations,” but in 2016 the Peruvian government admitted that it was chopping down trees in Mascho Piro 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,” Alfredo Vargas Pio, president of Peru’s Indigenous organization Fenamad, said in a press release (via The New York Post).

Pio is concerned that tensions will come to an inevitable head, resulting in a violent clash between loggers and the Mascho Piro people. Canales Tahuamanu has a history of aggressively engaging local Indigenous tribes, according to The Washington Post.

“This is a humanitarian disaster in the making,” Pearce said. “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.”