Isolated Amazonian Tribe Attacks Encroaching Loggers With Bows and Arrows

"This is a permanent emergency."

Natural Log

An isolated tribe in the Amazon rainforest used bows and arrows to head off loggers who were, Indigenous advocates say, likely encroaching on their land.

As the Associated Press reports based on statements from the Federación Nativa del Río Madre de Dios y Afluentes (FENAMAD) Indigenous rights group, the Mashco Piro people who live in the Peruvian Amazon fought back against the loggers, one of whom was wounded.

The activist group, which represents 39 tribes in the region, said that it was likely the loggers were operating illegally in the area.

"It is presumably illegal because the area where the incident occurred is a forestry concession that belonged to Wood Tropical Forest until November 2022," a FENAMAD representative told the AP, "and we are not aware of a concession that has requested or granted enabling rights in the same area."

Permanent Emergency

News of the seemingly defensive violence comes just over a month after another Indigenous advocacy group, Survival International, published photos of Mashco Piro tribe members on a beach in the nearby village of Yine, which hosts a population more assimilated into modern society.

As the group noted back in June, the appearance of Mashco Piro members in Yine suggests that their territory, which the Peruvian government has been reticent to protect, has been increasingly encroached upon by logging companies.

"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," another FENAMAD spokesperson told Survival International earlier this summer of the photos. "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."

Given that at least one logger has now been injured and that others have died before when allegedly encroaching upon Mashco Piro land, that warning now seems all the more prescient.

Survival International considers the Mascho Piro the largest voluntarily isolated tribe in the world — and we are not using the term "uncontacted" here because it's steeped in colonialism and virtually no humans on the planet are still fully untouched by the modern world — and has long advocated for greater government protections for the group.

"This is a permanent emergency," SI researcher Teresa Mayo told AP after the more recent encroachment. "For the last month, we have been seeing the Mascho Piro every two weeks at different points, and in all of them they are surrounded by loggers."

In the Amazon region, logging companies are known for their illegal encroachment and enjoy overt government support in doing so — which makes the seeming self-defense of the Mashco Piro people all the more justified.

More on the region: Remote Amazon Tribe Finally Gets Internet, Gets Hooked on Porn and Social Media