Paraguay’s Ayoreo People Fight For their Ancestral Land

In the Western Paraguayan Chaco region, the indigenous Ayoreo people are fighting multinational corporations for rights to their land. In 2012, the Paraguayan Institute of the Indigenous (INDI), an organization that is supposed to be responsible for defending indigenous rights.  illegally sold the Ayoreo’s land to international ranching firms. The President of INDI from 2012 is currently serving a 6 year prison sentence due to corruption charges. The Cuyabia region, home to the Ayoreo people, is experiencing the highest rates of deforestation of any region  in the world. This deforestation threatens the Ayoreo’s land and also threatens some subgroups of the Ayoreo who live in the more remote parts of the forest.  These groups are currently uncontacted and risk being wiped out by disease if they are forced to move from their land. Eleven firms currently claim ownership of this  land and have begun deforestation and have threatened residents in some areas by hiring armed security guards.

The Ayoreo are claiming title to only a fraction of their territory. While their ancestral lands add up to 550,000 hectares, they are only fighting for 25,000 hectares of land. Furthermore, if they win back the title, returning land will be challenging, as the land is different now from when they left it. However, despite these difficulties, the Ayoreo and their supporters are determined to continue resisting the deforestation and destruction of their homeland, which is a common undertaking by many indigenous communities in Latin America today.