Isolated Amazon tribe Mashco Piro: Peruvian government put on them "T-shirts" they called 'controlled contact'

On Thursday July 17, Peru’s Ministry of Culture held a press conference announcing their implementation of a “plan of controlled contact” with the indigenous group Mashco Piro in the region of Madre de Diós.

It is estimated that Peru has over 5,000 indigenous people in communities that are either completely or partially isolated in the regions of the Peruvian rainforest. Rare pictures of the “uncontacted” Mascho Piros first appeared in major media outlets in February 2012. 

They inhabit an area in the southeastern part of the country, which is part of the Amazon Rainforest. The designation “uncontacted people” refers to those who have not had significant interactions with other communities.

The government’s anouncement was made by Vice Minister of Interculturality Patricia Balbuena. She explained that a team of interpreters and tranlators from the Ministry of Culture “performed fieldwork with the communities of Mascho Piros with the goal of getting to know their concerns.”


She claimed the decision to initiate contact was made because of repeated sightings and encounters between the isolated community and other residends in the region. Personnel from the Ministry of Culture have moved to the area to prevent tourists and religious groups from providing the Mashco Piro with food, clothes, and any other equipment.

The Mashco-Piro are an indigenous tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers who inhabit the remote regions of the Amazon rainforest.

They live in Manu Park in the Madre de Dios Region in Peru. They have, in the past, actively avoided contact with non-native people. Choosing instead to live in voluntary isolation in Peru's south-eastern Amazon.


But last year, they sparked concern by making contact with the outside world for the second time since 2011, on the river hamlet.

The Peruvian government has been forced to act after 200 members of the Mashco Piro tribe staged several raids on a local village in Peru stealing food and tools.

According to the Peruvian Interculture Ministry the tribesmen chose to steal from their village neighbours because they realised it would be easier than searching for food.


Music : Black Bird by Kevin MacLeod
Source : Reuters, DailyMail , TeleSurTV , Elcomercio , Guardian

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