An advocacy group for Indigenous peoples has released images of a reclusive Peruvian Amazon tribe’s members searching for food outside of their usual area.
The group calls the pictures evidence that industrial tree cutting operations are “dangerously close” to the tribe’s territory. The industry is also known as logging.
The group, Survival International, said the photographs and video it posted recently show members of the Mashco Piro looking for food near the community of Monte Salvado, on the Las Piedras River in Madre de Dios.
Several logging companies hold timber agreements inside territory the tribe lives in, Survival International says. The group has long worked to protect what it says is the largest “uncontacted” tribe in the world. The nearness of logging operations raises fears of conflict between loggers and tribal members, as well as the possibility that loggers could bring dangerous diseases to the Mashco Piro, the group said.
Two loggers, one of whom died, were shot with arrows while fishing in 2022 in a reported fight with tribal members.
Cesar Ipenza is a lawyer who specializes in environmental law in Peru. He is not connected with Survival International.
Ipenza said the new images are evidence of a “worrying situation because we do not know exactly what is the reason for their departure (from the rainforest) to the beaches.”
Isolated Indigenous tribes may travel in August to collect turtle eggs to eat, he said.
“But we also see with great concern that some illegal activity may be taking place in the areas where they live and lead them to leave and be under pressure,” he said. “We cannot deny the presence of a logging concession kilometers away from where they live.”
Survival International called for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a group that confirms sustainable forestry, to remove its approval of the operations of one of those companies, Peru-based Canales Tahuamanu. The FSC responded in a statement that it would do “a comprehensive review” of the company’s operations to ensure it is protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples.
Canales Tahuamanu, also known as Catahua, has said in the past that it is operating with official permission. The company did not immediately answer a message seeking comment on its operations and the tribe.
A 2023 report by the United Nations’ special reporter on the rights of Indigenous peoples said Peru’s government had recognized in 2016 that the Mashco Piro and other isolated tribes were using territories that had been opened to logging.
The report expressed concern that the territory of Indigenous peoples had not been marked out “despite reasonable evidence of their presence since 1999.”
Survival International said the photos were taken June 26-27 and show about 53 male Mashco Piro on the beach. The group estimated as many as 100 to 150 tribal members would have been in the area with women and children nearby.
“It is very unusual that you see such a large group together,” Survival International researcher Teresa Mayo said in a talk with the Associated Press.
Ipenza, the lawyer, said Indigenous people usually move in smaller groups, and a larger group might be a “situation of alarm” even in the case of legal logging.
I’m John Russell.
