In 1999, the anthropologist Beatriz Huertas ventured into the Peruvian Amazon to investigate reports of uncontacted Indigenous peoples. Along the Las Piedras River, people in Monte Salvado, a Yine village, described how every summer, aislados – those avoiding sustained contact with outsiders – would appear across the river.
Huertas followed the trail north into Brazil’s Acre state, collecting evidence – footprints, tools, local testimonies. Her findings, compiled in a 2001 report for the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River and Tributaries (Fenamad), recommended protecting 2m hectares for the Mashco Piro, the world’s largest uncontacted Indigenous group.
Twenty-five years later, the Mashco Piro face growing threats from logging, drug trafficking and the climate crisis in the Brazil-Peru borderlands. Despite legal protection and international agreements, cooperation between Brazil and Peru…