Sighting of Peru’s uncontacted Mashko Piro people

Why in the News?

An NGO has released rare photographs of the Mashco Piro tribespeople, one of the world’s 100-odd uncontacted tribes.

Who are the Mashko Piro people?

• The Mashco Piro tribe, possibly numbering over 750, are nomadic hunter-gatherers.
• They live in the Amazon jungles of the Madre de Dios Region, near Peru’s border with Brazil and Bolivia.
• Almost all uncontacted tribes, including the Mashco Piro, live in the jungles of the Amazon and Southeast Asia.
• The Mashco-Piro speak a dialect of the Piro language.
• The tribe is highly reclusive and only occasionally contacts the Yine people, another native group.

Threats from the logging activities

• Logging companies has been allotted 53,000 hectares in the Madre de Dios forests to extract cedar and mahogany.
• The Mashco Piro have expressed their disapproval of the logging companies through the Yine people, reporting feelings of pressure and upset due to company assaults.

Historical Context:

• The Mashco Piro’s territory was invaded during Peru’s rubber boom in the 1880s, resulting in displacement, enslavement, and mass killings.
• Survivors moved further upstream on the Manu River and have lived in isolation since then.

Protective measures from the Government

• In 2002, the Peruvian government established the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve to protect the Mashco Piro’s territory.
• However, large parts of their traditional lands lie outside the reserve and have been sold as logging concessions.
• The Peruvian government has forbidden all contact with the Mashco Piro to prevent the spread of diseases to which the tribe has no immunity.
• As logging companies encroach on their territories, the Mashco Piro have nowhere left to go.