Members of the uncontacted Mashco Piro tribe in Peru recently used bows and arrows to attack loggers working near their reserve. At least one logger was seriously injured and possibly two others as well, according to Survival International, an NGO that advocates for Indigenous rights worldwide.
The recent violence follows shortly after the release of a video that shows roughly 50 Mashco Piro men and boys on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon, close to where logging companies have concessions.
The Mashco Piro tribe is thought to be the world’s largest living in voluntary isolation with roughly 750 members. In 2002, the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve was created for the tribe following pressure to do so from the Indigenous advocacy organization FENAMAD, which represents 39 Indigenous communities in the region. However, the land set aside for the tribe was just one-third what had been requested. The government sold off much of their remaining ancestral territory as logging concessions, creating a predictable conflict between the two groups.
“We have always warned that this could happen,” Julio Cusurichi, president of FENAMAD, told The Guardian.
The latest incident occurred in a part of the rainforest not yet formally protected as Mashco Piro territory but acknowledged by the government as such, according to Survival International.
This is the second time in two years that contact between the Mashco Piro and loggers has turned violent. In 2022, one logger was killed and another injured while they were fishing on the banks of the Tahuamanu River, which borders a logging concession.
Interactions like these have not just been deadly for loggers; advocacy groups warn that they are also dangerous for uncontacted tribes that do not have any natural immunity to outside diseases.
The deadly encounter in 2022 was on a concession operated by logging company Maderera Canales Tahuamanu (MCT), which has constructed roughly 200 kilometers (124 miles) of new roads in the Peruvian Amazon. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has certified that the MCT timber extraction is sustainable and ethical. Survival International has called on the FSC to revoke MCT’s certification to pressure the company to end logging in the area. FSC has said it will review MCT’s compliance with the standards established for interacting with Indigenous peoples living in self-isolation in Madre de Dios.
Ricardo García Pinedo, director of the general-directorate for the rights of Indigenous peoples at Peru’s Ministry of Culture, told Mongabay in July that there were no immediate plans to revise the logging concession that places loggers and tribes near one another.
Banner image: courtesy of Survival InternationalMP VIDEO
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