Contact Frontiers: Threats and Conflicts in the Territory of an Isolated Tribe in Peru's Amazon

In 2002, by creating the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve, the Peruvian State certified the presence of Mashco Piro families in the area and designated the rest of the neighboring territory as a permanent production forest. That same year, the Peruvian government granted concessions to several logging companies in the Amazon forest, including Maderera Canales Tahuamanu SAC, which shares land with the Nueva Oceania community.

Since at least 2017, the community has been denouncing what its members describe as harassment by the logging company, which already has two forest concessions within the limits of the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve. 
Such reality has created a conflict that persists to this day: Is coexistence possible between a logging company, an uncontacted tribe, and an Indigenous community, given that they all depend, one way or another, on the same natural resources? 

“No, coexisting with the company is impossible,” says Enrique Añez Dos Santos, the first chief of the Nueva Oceania community. “We live differently, we don´t have that ambition for money, but the company does. Destroying the forest is something very different. It´s impossible to think that a company with a forest concession could live alongside isolated tribes; it´s impossible.” 

As part of the documentary Contact Frontiers, a team from OjoPúblico traveled more than 12 hours down the river Tahuamanu from the town of Iberia to the Nueva Oceania community in the Iñapari province to understand the dynamics of this conflict.

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This story was produced with support from Earth Journalism Network. It was first published in Spanish in Ojo Público on April 21, 2024. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Banner image: The jungle and river from the air / Credit: OjoPúblico.