Deal #869

Initially the territory of the Ayoreo-totobiegosodes covered an area of 550,000 hectares, but they focused their struggle on securing and protecting urgently at least the heart of it. Under Paraguayan law, the area claimed should have been under Ayoreo ownership decades ago, since both the Ayoreo and the country’s Constitution recognize the right of indigenous peoples to title to their traditional lands. But it was not until long after the Ayorean leaders received the title for 18,000 hectares of their ancestral land.

Most of their land has been sold to cattle ranches. This forced the contactless Ayoreo to live on the run, escaping from the bulldozers that destroy their forest. Since 1969 many of them have been driven out of the forest. During the 1940s and 1950s Mennonite farmers established colonies on their land. The Ayoreo resisted this invasion, and there were deaths on both sides, many Ayoreo died in these encounters and others succumbed later to disease.

The Ayoreos have been quickly expelled from their ancestral territories as the expansion of livestock destroyed their forests.

Many Ayoreo people died in the encounters and others succumbed later to diseases. They are communities that, being isolated, are not prepared for our diseases. The ayoreo-totobiegoso cultivate pumpkins, beans and melons, and hunt in the forest. By dismantling their forest and appropriating their lands, It became difficult for them to get their food.

They offered no benefit to the community.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the human rights defender of the subcontinent, has demanded that the Paraguayan state adopt measures to stop deforestation in the land of the Ayoreos and to protect their isolated relatives from forced contact. The main indigenous organizations in Latin America, with the support of Survival, united with the Ayoreo and launched an unprecedented public call to action.