A clash between an “uncontacted” Indigenous tribe – thought to be one of the most isolated in the world – and loggers has led to the deaths of two and the disappearance of two others as conflict over Indigenous land rights escalated deep in the Peruvian Amazon.
Wood Central understands the clash occurred last Thursday in Madre de Dios, where loggers were working to open a trail – before the Maschco Piro peoples attacked the workers with bows and arrows.
The Peruvian Ministry of Culture reported the incident on Monday, and FENAMAD, an environmental group representing the interests of Indigenous communities, confirmed that the confrontation occurred near the Pariamanu River, an area belonging to the Maschco Piro peoples.
According to the Ministry of Culture, responsible for protecting Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation, four people died between 2015 and 2022 after skirmishes between the contractors with logging concessions and the Mascho Piro.
In recent months, the tribe has been far outside its territory, under massive pressure from logging inside its lands – according to NGO Survival International.
In late June, the Peruvian government reported that residents had sighted Maschco Piro on the Las Piedras River, 150km from Puerto Maldonado, the capital of Madre de Dios. Rosa Padilha, at the Brazilian Catholic bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council in the state of Acre, said the Mashco Piro had also been sighted across the border in Brazil.
They flee from loggers on the Peruvian side,” she said. “At this time of the year, they appear on the beaches to take Amazon turtle eggs. That’s when we find their footprints on the sand. They leave behind a lot of turtle shells. They are a people with no peace, restless, because they are always on the run.
Rosa Padilha, from the Brazilian Catholic bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council
The conflict comes after Wood Central last month reported that three Amazonian Indigenous organisations are now accusing the world’s most recognised ecolabel of betraying the lives of the Maschco Piro people and “endorsing the systematic violation of Indigenous people’s rights.”
The three groups – Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), and the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River and Tributaries (FENAMAD) – blame a “half-hearted” Forest Stewardship Council of “deliberately delaying a decision on whether to withdraw certification from Canales Tahuamanu,” a logging company that “has bulldozed 120 miles of forests on the uncontacted Mashco Piro peoples’ land.”
According to Fiona Watson, Research and Advocacy Director of Survival International – who last month published viral footage of the Maschco Piro attacking logging trucks – the Indigenous statement must increase pressure on the FSC to end wood certification from Mashco Piro territory:
FSC is hiding behind yet another so-called investigation. It’s doing exactly what it’s done before—stalling for time to allow the destruction of Mashco Piro’s forest to continue. Logging must end now, or the consequences for Mashco Piro will be dire.
Fiona Watson, Research and Advocacy Director of Survival International
Survival International claims more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, although many face extinction due to habitat damage caused by outsiders.
- To learn more about the role of Indigenous peoples in managing the Amazon (and Atlantic forests), click on Wood Central’s special feature.
