The Mashco Piro are believed to be the largest uncontactated Indigenous people on Earth. But only some of their territory is currently protected – the rest has been sold off as logging concessions. One logging company, called Canales Tahuamanu, has already bulldozed more than 120 miles of logging roads into the rainforest.
The Mashco Piro’s survival is on a knife edge. They face three deadly threats:
- As logging activity increases, the likelihood of a deadly encounter between the Indigenous people and the loggers also grows.
- The new roads provide an easy way into the forest for settlers and colonists who will soon destroy the rainforest.
- As outsiders flood in, they are highly likely to introduce common Western diseases like flu or measles to which the Mashco Piro have no immunity. Such an epidemic would cause mass casualties.
The Peruvian authorities have previously recognized that the whole of this area is Mashco Piro territory, but after intense lobbying by the loggers, they refused to expand the protected area.
Please tell them that they must now expand the protected area to include all the Mashco Piro land, and revoke the logging licenses that have been granted.
Your email will be sent to:
President of Peru, José María Balcázar Zelada
the Minister of Culture, Fátima Soraya Altabás Kajatt
the President of the Council of Ministers, Luis Enrique Arroyo Sánchez
the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Luis Enrique Jiménez Borra
the Minister of Development and Social Inclusion, Lily Norka Vásquez Dávila
the Minister of Women and Vulnerable Populations, Edith Betzabeth Pariona Valer
the Minister of Environment, Nelly Paredes del Castillo
the Minister of Health, Juan Carlos Velasco Guerrero
the Minister of the Interior, José Mercedes Zapata Morante
the Director of the Directorate of Indigenous People in Isolation and Initial Contact of MINCUL, María Amelia Trigoso Barentzen
the Director of the Directorate General for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the Ministry of Culture, Ángel Antonio Gonzalez Ramirez
