MASCHO PIRO (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 - Geography)

Context: Indigenous rights NGO Survival International has released rare pictures of the Mashco Piro tribespeople, one of the world’s 100-odd uncontacted tribes.

Mashco Piro (Uncontacted Tribes)

• Habitat: Almost all of them live in the jungles of Amazon and Southeast Asia.
• Largest Tribe: The Mashco Piro, possibly numbering more than 750, are believed to be the largest of such tribes.
• Location: These nomadic hunter-gatherers live in the Amazon jungles of the Madre de Dios Region, close to Peru’s border with Brazil and Bolivia.
• Prohibition of Contact: Peru’s government has forbidden all contact with the Mashco Piro, fearing the spread of a disease among the population to which it has no immunity.
• Reclusiveness: The tribe is very reclusive, only occasionally contacting the native but contacted Yine people.
• Territorial Reserve: In 2002, the Peru government created the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve to protect the territory of the Mashco Piro.
• Outside the Reserve: Large parts of their traditional ground lie outside the reserve.
• Logging Concessions: Swathes of land have since been sold off as logging concessions, giving companies the right to fell the evergreen forests for timber and other produce.
• Canales Tahuamanu: The most prominent logging company, Canales Tahuamanu, has been allotted an area of 53,000 hectares in the forests of Madre de Dios to extract cedar and mahogany by Peru’s Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
• Defense of Rights: Canales Tahuamanu has aggressively defended its logging rights, and clamped down on critical voices in courts.