Rare images of an uncontacted tribe show its members face “humanitarian disaster” as loggers encroach on their territory, a British human rights group has warned.
According to local campaigners, the Mascho Piro indigenous tribe have been sighted coming out of the rainforest in their remote part of the Peruvian Amazon in recent weeks in search of food.
Survival International said the images highlighted the need to “throw out” loggers set to begin work in the tribe’s territory, a few miles from where these pictures were taken by the Las Piedras river.
Several logging companies hold timber concessions inside the territory, while more than 50 Mashco Piro people have appeared in recent days near a village of the Yine people called Monte Salvado.
The Mashco Piro, who live between two natural reserves in Madre de Dios, are rarely seen and do not communicate much with the Yine or anyone, according to Survival International.
“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,” director Caroline Pearce said.
One company, Canales Tahuamanu, has built more than 200 kilometres (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 by Reuters news agency for comment.
The company is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, according to which it has 53,000 hectares (130,000 acres) of forests in Madre de Dios to extract cedar and mahogany.
On 28 June, the Peruvian government reported local residents claimed to see Mashco Piro on the Las Piedras river, 150 kilometres from the city of Puerto Maldonado, the capital of Madre de Dios.
The Mashco Piro have also been sighted across the border in Brazil, according to Rosa Padilha from the Brazilian Catholic bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council in the state of Acre.
“They flee from loggers on the Peruvian side,” she said. “They are a people with no peace, restless, because they are always on the run.”
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Alfredo Vargas Pio, president of local indigenous organisation FENAMAD, said the tribe’s territorial rights must be protected.
“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,” he added.
“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 recognised and protected in law.”
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