'Uncontacted' Indigenous Group Just Made Contact

Mashco Piro tribe reportedly attacked loggers in Peruvian Amazon who were getting too close
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 12, 2024 9:18 AM CDT
'Uncontacted' Indigenous Group Just Made Contact
This June 2024 photo shows members of the Mashco Piro along the Las Piedras River in the Amazon, in the Peruvian province of Madre de Dios.   (Survival International via AP, File)

An "uncontacted" Indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon apparently spooked by local loggers getting too close to their area went on the attack last month, injuring at least one logger and possibly killing two others, according to an NGO there. Per the Guardian, the Mashco Piro tribe reportedly carried out its July 27 assault using bows and arrows against an illegal logging camp along the Pariamanu River, an attack reported to Peruvian officials by the Indigenous group FENAMAD. Teresa Mayo, a researcher with Survival International, an NGO that advocates for Indigenous peoples, said the clash took place in an area acknowledged to be Mashco Piro land, but which isn't yet formally protected by Peru's government—a demand that Indigenous groups have long made.

Logging interests have long pushed back on that demand, as upgrading that section of rainforest in the province of Madre de Dios would effectively halt all logging activity there. A proposal by Peru's Culture Ministry to add extra protections to the region was signed by a multisector commission in 2016, but "inexplicably the new status was not sealed by a presidential decree," the Guardian notes. Last month, Survival International published photos of about 50 male Mashco Piro tribe members who'd emerged from the rainforest and were searching for food on a beach along the Las Piedras River—proof, the organization said, that logging parties were getting "dangerously close" to the tribe's territory, per the AP. "This is a permanent emergency," Mayo tells the Guardian. "It is very tense in the zone."

  • "We have always warned that this could happen," says ex-FENAMAD chief Julio Cusurichi of the attack. "Their land is being invaded by illegal logging and drug traffickers, so to save their lives, they are spreading into other areas." He added: "The Mashco Piro are facing genocide." In 2022, similar tensions, and a similar bow-and-arrow attack, led to one logger getting killed and another injured while fishing. FENAMAD warns that more violent clashes could take place if the government doesn't intervene, and that the Mashco Piro could also be susceptible to contagious diseases if the loggers get too close, per CBS News. Meanwhile, Survival International has called for Peru's Forest Stewardship Council to yank certification for the timber operations of logging company Canales Tahuamanu. The FSC last month said it would "conduct a comprehensive review" of the firm.
(More Indigenous peoples stories.)

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