ILLEGAL loggers in Peru are felling trees in protected territory and coming into conflict with an uncontacted Amazon tribe, the Survival International indigenous rights campaign warns.

“It appears that at least one logger has been seriously wounded, and possibly two others also, by arrows fired at them by a large group — up to 100 — of Mashco Piro people,” the group says.

Together with the regional indigenous organisation Fenamad, Survival International is calling on Peruvian authorities to investigate the incident and ensure no logging occurs in areas of the forest recognised as Mashco Piro territory.

It cited reports that armed loggers are now patrolling the area, and stressed the need to protect both the tribes people and the exploited logging labour.

The Maschco Piro are a tribe that has avoided contact with outside peoples, living in the Manu national park in the Amazon rainforest.

Peru’s government, which overthrew the socialist president Pedro Castillo in December 2022, is not known for respecting indigenous rights, having gunned down mainly indigenous demonstrators demanding the return of the elected president in the weeks and months that followed his arrest and imprisonment.