Rare Video Shows Isolated Indigenous Tribe Emerging From Amazon Amid Nearby Logging

Rare photos and video published this week show members of an isolated Indigenous South American tribe emerging from the Amazonian rainforest in Peru near where logging companies have been demolishing land under government-backed concessions.

More than 50 members of the Mashco Piro tribe were seen on June 26 near the Yine village of Monte Salvado, close to the borders of Brazil and Bolivia in Madre de Dios, a representative with Survival International, which published the footage Tuesday, told HuffPost.

“Several logging companies hold timber concessions inside the territory that belongs to the Mashco Piro people,” the Indigenous rights organization said in a release. “The nearest is just a few miles from where the Mashco Piro were filmed.”

The Mashco Piro have had no contact with people from outside the area, and are considered voluntarily isolated. They have angrily denounced the presence of the loggers on their land, Survival International said, citing the Yine, who speak a language similar to that of the Mashco Piro.

Survival International director Caroline Pearce called the loggers’ presence on the land “a humanitarian disaster in the making.”

“It’s absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco Piro’s territory is properly protected at last,” she said in a statement.

Alejandro Parellada, a senior adviser with the International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs whose work focuses on Indigenous people’s land rights in Latin America, said that these sightings along Peru’s beaches and rivers are occurring in part because of recent land changes by outsiders.

“It has happened several times in recent years because the forest areas where these peoples live have been invaded by loggers, illegal miners, etc.,”