Proposed legislation in Peru would threaten to dismantle reserves for isolated peoples in the Amazon, sparking pushback from indigenous groups living in the region who want to protect vulnerable tribes.

The bill was introduced in the country's Congress by Jorge Morante, member of People's Force, a right-wing political party.

Peru is one of a handful of countries where some indigenous people live isolated from the hyper-connected world around them. A total of 25 identified groups are under protection in Peruvian Amazonia, an area of the Amazon rainforest that is second only to Brazil's in size.

Morante's bill would revise those protections and seeks to reassess whether the uncontacted tribes currently recognized under Peruvian law even exist.

The congressman told reporters that there was no scientific evidence that indigenous tribes live in north Peru's Loreto region, which is one of the region's most sparsely populated areas due to its remote location in the Amazon Rainforest.

"For the time being, in the Loreto region, the information is totally inaccurate. Let's say it is referential information. There is no direct evidence," he said.

Daniel Vela, a community leader of an indigenous group near the country's border with Brazil known as the Matsés or the Mayoruna, said that the welfare of the uncontacted tribes is worth fighting for.

"They are our relatives, our family members, you could say. We are very worried about how we will be able to protect them," he said.

Vela sees the bill as a ploy to open up some 4 million hectares of Amazon Rainforest, currently protected in seven reserves, for exploitation.

"Behind this bill there are many businessmen who want to extract timber, mining and oil and we are not going to be silent. We are going to fight until this bill is eliminated," he said.

Currently, protection of isolated peoples falls under the jurisdiction of Peru's Ministry of Culture. The bill would transfer that responsibility to regional governments, meaning a reserve could be created or undone by regional law rather than by a supreme decree.

Anthropologists believe such a measure could spell disaster for vulnerable people in isolated and remote areas who have no immunity to illnesses such as the common cold.

"The risk is so worrying and sad. It would mean the loss of the indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact. We are talking about promoting their extinction and that extinction would be based on the laws of the state itself through the congress of the republic," said Dulhy Pinedo, program director of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Directorate under Peru's Ministry of Culture.