Ayoreo appeal to Inter-American Commission to save their forest from destruction

Ayoreo appeal to Inter-American Commission to save their forest from destruction

This article originally appeared in Survival International.

Featured image: The Ayoreo have previously blocked the trans-Chaco Highway to draw attention to government inaction over the destruction of their forest. © GAT/ Survival

The survival of the last uncontacted tribe in South America outside the Amazon is at stake.

Indigenous people living in a South American forest with one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation have appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to save it from total destruction. Their uncontacted relatives are fleeing from one corner of the remaining forest to another, seeking refuge from ever-present bulldozers.

The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode of Paraguay’s Chaco forest have been trying since 1993 – when they submitted a formal land claim – to protect their forest in the face of a rapidly expanding agricultural frontier.

In 2013, given a total lack of political will in Paraguay to uphold the law and stop the destruction of their lands, they requested that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights intervene.

In 2016, at the government’s request, they agreed to enter formal negotiations with the government for their land titles, but for 5 years, and despite 42 meetings, the destruction of their forest has continued unabated. Satellite photos reveal that the Ayoreo now live in an island of forest surrounded by monocultures and beef production.

The Ayoreo have now announced they are pulling out of the negotiations, and have written again to the Inter-American Commission, asking it to order the Paraguayan authorities to finally return their land to them, and expel the agribusiness corporations that have taken it over.

Although most Ayoreo-Totobiegosode were forcibly contacted by American evangelical missionaries some years ago, an unknown number remain uncontacted in the last island of their forest, which is now being cut down around them.

Earlier this year one uncontacted group made contact with a settled community of their relatives, to express their fear at the destruction of their forest refuge, before returning to the forest.

The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode leader Porai Picanerai, who was forcibly contacted by the American New Tribes Mission in 1986, said: “My uncontacted relatives are suffering and in danger because they barely have any space now to live in. There are many outsiders occupying our land and burning the forest for beef production.”

Porai also said: “After having participated in most of the 42 meetings, I can confirm that the government doesn’t keep its word, that it lies and doesn’t want to protect my people or return the lands that we’ve always lived in and cared for. We’ll only get the government to act by going to outside bodies like the Commission.”

Survival Researcher Teresa Mayo said today: “The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode have called a halt to the negotiation process as the government was just dragging it out while allowing the rampant destruction of the Ayoreo’s forest to continue. The state knows that it simply has to do nothing to effectively condemn the uncontacted Ayoreo to death – and if a government sees the solution to its “problem” as the extermination of a people, we’re talking about genocide.”

Landmark Talks on Uncontacted Tribe Fail to Stop Logging

Landmark Talks on Uncontacted Tribe Fail to Stop Logging

Featured image: There have been confrontations between the Ayoreo and the Paraguayan authorities in recent years, as the tribe have protested against the theft and destruction of their land.© GAT/ Survival

     by Survival International

Landmark talks between the Paraguayan government and a recently contacted tribe have yet to reach an agreement, allowing rampant deforestation to continue. Some members of the tribe are uncontacted, and live in a rapidly shrinking island of forest.

The talks began six months ago after a petition from the Ayoreo tribe to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an influential body which holds governments in the Americas to account on human rights issues. The Ayoreo have been claiming the right to their ancestral land since 1993.

Halfway through the year-long process, however, and little concrete action has been taken, leading to fears for the tribe’s long-term survival. A technical study is due to be carried out to assess the feasibility of securing the land.

The government has also failed to stop the rapid logging of land owned by the Ayoreo, despite a 2016 emergency order from the Inter-American Commission to protect the uncontacted Indians and halt deforestation.

Aerial photograph showing the devastation that logging has brought to Ayoreo land.

Aerial photograph showing the devastation that logging has brought to Ayoreo land. © Survival

Background briefing

– The Ayoreo live in the Chaco, which is the largest forest in South America outside the Amazon and has recently been recorded as having the highest rate of deforestation in the world. Experts estimate that the forest lost almost 10 million trees in January 2017.
– This poses a deadly threat to the Ayoreo, who face catastrophe unless their land is protected.
– Many members of the Ayoreo tribe were forcibly contacted by missionaries between 1969 and 1986. Continual land invasions forced them to abandon their homes. Many have since suffered from disease, including a TB-like illness, poverty, and exploitation on the fringes of mainstream Paraguayan society.
– Recently contacted members of the tribe spent years fleeing from bulldozers, which they called “beasts with metal skin.” The machines are used by loggers to clear paths for cutting trees.
– The petition which finally brought the Paraguayan government to the negotiating table is called Petition 850-15. It features a claim for the restitution of Ayoreo land.
– In February 2016, the Inter-American Commission issued an emergency order (MC 54-13) calling for the protection of uncontacted Ayoreo and their forests. Although this was in response to a separate petition submitted by the Ayoreo, the orders are to also be discussed during the talks.
– The local support group GAT, and indigenous organization OPIT, have played an important role in lobbying the government, and after months of warning, finally pressed them to investigate the logging in July 2017. It remains to be seen whether the deforestation will be stopped and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Most of the Ayoreo have been forced out of the forest. They have since been fighting for their land rights.

Most of the Ayoreo have been forced out of the forest. They have since been fighting for their land rights. © Survival

Survival International is calling for a complete halt to logging on Ayoreo land, and for the return of all lands which have been titled to ranching companies.

Uncontacted tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a remote past. They are our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity. Where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

They are the best guardians of their environment. And evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The Ayoreo have already been waiting more than twenty years for their lands to be protected. All this time they’ve seen their forests destroyed about them. They hoped the Inter-American Commission’s intervention would finally push the government to act, but that hope too has proved an illusion. Tragically, it seems that Paraguay’s government is so firmly tied to the ranchers and landowners who control the levers of power that nothing short of massive public pressure will move them to act.”

Paraguay: Government defies order to protect uncontacted tribe

Featured image: Members of the Paraguayan Ayoreo-Totobiegosode group on the day they were contacted for the first time, in 2004. © GAT/Survival

     by Survival International

The Paraguayan government has failed to act to protect a group of uncontacted tribal people, despite having been ordered to do so in February of this year.

Six months ago the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanded that the government stop the deforestation of the Chaco, which suffers the highest rate of deforestation in the world, and protect the vulnerable uncontacted Ayoreo Indians who live there.

However, the government has failed to stop the continuing clearance of the area’s forest, raising concerns that the uncontacted Ayoreo Indians face annihilation.

Several major ranching corporations are clearing forest to raise cattle in the Chaco, which is losing an average of 14 million trees per month. Deforestation continues and bulldozers have recently been heard on Ayoreo land.

Local organizations GAT and OPIT have been trying to persuade the government to act on the Commission’s demands but the government has so far done very little.

One Ayoreo told Survival: “We don’t want to lose our land. It’s where our fathers and grandparents lived and where our relatives live now. We want our children and grandchildren to grow up in the land of our ancestors. We are claiming this land.’’

Much of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode land is being deforested, Paraguay. © GAT/Survival

Much of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode land is being deforested, Paraguay.
© GAT/Survival

Companies destroying the Chaco include Carlos Casado S.A. (a subsidiary of Spanish construction company Grupo San José), River Plate S.A, and Yaguarete Porá S.A, a Brazilian beef company. Yaguarete previously received Survival International’s “Greenwashing of the year” award for trying to brand an area it had heavily deforested as a “nature reserve.”

Evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation and therefore the best way to protect the Chaco is to uphold the Ayoreo’s land rights. Uncontacted tribes are also the best guardians of their environment. Their knowledge is irreplaceable and has been developed over thousands of years.

In August 2016, the UN examined Paraguay’s performance on racial discrimination. Survival International submitted a report on Paraguay’s human rights violations against the Ayoreo, which was considered in the session.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Unless Paraguay takes rapid action, the Ayoreo will become another statistic in the ongoing genocide of South America’s uncontacted peoples. The situation couldn’t be more serious: the Ayoreo face catastrophe unless their land and forest is protected from these rapacious foreign companies.”

Read more about the Ayoreo and their homeland here.

Survival International: The Ayoreo

Survival International: The Ayoreo

By Survival International

Of the several different sub-groups of Ayoreo, the most isolated are the Totobiegosode (‘people from the place of the wild pigs’).  Since 1969 many have been forced out of the forest, but some still avoid all contact with outsiders.  Their first sustained contact with white people came in the 1940s and 1950s, when Mennonite farmers established colonies on their land.  The Ayoreo resisted this invasion, and there were killings on both sides.

In 1979 and 1986 the American fundamentalist New Tribes Mission helped organise ‘manhunts’ in which large groups of Totobiegosode were forcibly brought out of the forest.  Several Ayoreo died in these encounters, and others later succumbed to disease.

Recently contacted Ayoreo Indians are worried for the future of their uncontacted relatives.  Other Totobiegosode groups came out of the forest in 1998 and 2004 as continual invasions of their land meant they constantly had to abandon their homes, making life very hard.  An unknown number still live a nomadic life in the forest.

The greatest current threat to the Totobiegosode is a Brazilian firm, Yaguarete Porá. It owns a 78,000 hectare plot in the heart of their territory, very near where uncontacted Ayoreo were recently sighted.  Yaguarete plans to bulldoze most of it to create a cattle ranch – this will have a devastating effect on the Indians’ ability to continue living there.

Crisis point

A 2013 University of Maryland report has found the Paraguayan Chaco to have the fastest rate of deforestation in the world.

Land inhabited by the Ayoreo is some of the last standing forest in the Chaco region, a great testament to the tribe’s conservation abilities.  However, pressure on the forest is immense. Almost all the Ayoreo’s ancestral land is now owned by private landowners, who hire work-teams to clear the forest of valuable timber and then introduce cattle. Many of these new landowners are Mennonites, but much of the Ayoreo land has now been bought up by wealthy Paraguayan and, especially, Brazilian cattle-ranching businesses.

The Indians are claiming title to just a fraction of their territory. Without their forest they cannot feed or support themselves, and they are also greatly concerned about their uncontacted relatives still living there.  Under Paraguayan law, this claim area should have been titled to the Indians years ago, as both Paraguayan law, and the country’s Constitution, recognize the Indians’ right to the ownership of their traditional lands.

But the powerful landowners have blocked the law at every turn, and have illegally bulldozed some of the forest already.

Crisis Point: As bulldozers and cattle ranchers encroach further into their territory the Ayoreo of Paraguay are worried for the safety of their uncontacted relatives.  In the heart of the Indians’ territory ranching firm Yaguarete Porá has already cleared a large area of forest that is home to uncontacted Ayoreo.

In response to public anger it has announced plans to create a “nature reserve” on its land, but actually intends to destroy around two thirds of the forest.  In 2010, Survival awarded the company with its Greenwashing Award.

With the bulldozing of this vast area of forest, the isolated Totobiegosode will have nowhere left to hide. The settled Totobiegosode are desperate to protect it.

Beast with Metal Skin: In 1994 a bulldozer driver clearing the forest at night was attacked out of the darkness. Although he didn’t know it, he was destroying the gardens and hunting grounds of a group of Ayoreo-Totobiegosode families. One of the Indians, Esoi, was finally forced out of the forest in 2004. Here, he recounts his attack on the bulldozer.

How do they live?

The Totobiegosode live in small communities. They grow squashes, beans and melons in the sandy soil, and hunt in the forest. Large tortoises and wild pig are particularly prized, as is the abundant wild honey.

In the forest four or five families will live together in a communal house. A central wooden pillar supports a dome-shaped structure of smaller branches, topped with dried mud.

Members of the Paraguayan Ayoreo-Totobiegosode group on the day they were contacted for the first time, in 2004.

Members of the Paraguayan Ayoreo-Totobiegosode group on the day they were contacted for the first time, in 2004. © GAT/Survival

Each family will have its own hearth around the outside; people will only sleep inside if it rains.  The most important Ayoreo ritual was named after asojna, the nightjar: when the bird’s call was first heard it heralded the arrival of the rainy season, and a month of celebrations and festivities.
An abandoned house in the Paraguayan Chaco belonging to uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Indians

An abandoned house in the Paraguayan Chaco belonging to uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Indians © Survival

The Ayoreo who now live in settled communities live in individual family huts. Those who have lost their land now have little choice but to work as exploited labourers on the cattle ranches that have taken over much of their territory.  The evangelical New Tribes Mission has a base near their communities, and exerts a powerful influence on their daily lives. Under the missionaries, the asojna ritual—and many others—have been suppressed.

Act now to help the Ayoreo

  • Write a letter or email to Grupo San Jose asking it to hand back the Ayoreo’s land to its rightful owners.
  • Write a letter or email to the government of Paraguay asking it to demarcate the Ayoreo’s land in line with the country’s laws and treaties.
  • Donate to the Ayoreo campaign (and other Survival campaigns).
Death Threats and Detention in Paraguay

Death Threats and Detention in Paraguay

NEW REPORT DOCUMENTS CHALLENGES OF DEFENDING INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS IN THE PARAGUAYAN CHACO

By  / Intercontinental Cry

Featured image: Members of the the Ayoreo community of Cuyabia. Photo: Iniciativa Amotocodie

We don’t care if our struggle involves going to prison or even dying. Our struggle is about justice because the land is ours and our children’s.”

—Alejandro Servín

When Alejandro Servin and five others members of the Enxet Sur indigenous community Kelyenmagategma returned home after two days in the woods hunting and collecting honey, little did they expect to be showered with bullets.

“Three of us were walking ahead when we heard the shots, a bullet just missed me. We ran back into the forest to seek refuge but the employees of the estate managed to catch the youngest member of our group, Francisco, who was 14 years old at the time,” says Servín. “As a result all of us came out. Three hours later a contingent of police arrived, arrested us without a warrant and brought us – in the estate owner’s truck – to the nearest police station.”

Following their arrest, the six indigenous men were transferred to the capital Asuncion where they were held incommunicado for 48 hours without access to a lawyer or contact with their families. They were eventually charged with “theft of cattle” – a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison under the Paraguayan Constitution. TierraViva – a human rights NGO that provides legal support and advocates for the land rights of indigenous communities in the Chaco region of Paraguay – eventually managed to get the charges dropped due to lack of evidence and the serious legal inconsistencies surrounding the arrest.

It is these as well as an array of other cases documented during more than 20 years of work in the Paraguayan Chaco that lead TierraViva to publish the first ever report on the situation of Human Rights Defenders. The report, released in December of last year, features case studies of illegitimate criminal charges, threats and acts of violence against 19 indigenous leaders and human rights lawyers working on land rights in the Chaco.

Paraguay is divided into strikingly different eastern and western regions by the Rio Paraguay. The southeastern Paranena region can be generally described as consisting of an area of highlands that slopes toward the Rio Paraguay. The Chaco in the nothwestern region is predominantly lowlands, also inclined toward the Rio Paraguay, that are alternately flooded and parched. Image by freeworldmaps.net.

Paraguay is divided into strikingly different eastern and western regions by the Rio Paraguay. The southeastern Paranena region can be generally described as consisting of an area of highlands that slopes toward the Rio Paraguay. The Chaco in the nothwestern region is predominantly lowlands, also inclined toward the Rio Paraguay, that are alternately flooded and parched. Image by freeworldmaps.net.

This arid forested region represents just over 60 percent of Paraguayan territory. It is inhabited by indigenous communities who know it as their ancestral land and private landowners who began to purchase estates from the 1940s onwards, denying the existence of those indigenous communities. This was the case for Kelyenmagategma: the company El Algarrobal SA bought land in 2002 that was inhabited by this Enxet Sur community.

In the past decade, land in the more populated eastern part of the country has become scarce leading to an expansion of the agricultural frontier into the Chaco. The rate of deforestation over the past five years has averaged 500 hectares (equivalent to 500 football fields) per day. In response to this alarming trend, indigenous communities have begun to organize and unite to secure legal title to parts of their ancestral lands to protect what remains of the unique Chaco ecosystem.

Despite the fact that the constitution of Paraguay recognizes the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their ancestral lands, according to Rodrigo Villagra Carron of TierraViva:

“What we see is an undeniable pattern of Government support for the interests of private landowners and the repression of those who defend human rights and national and international legislation related to the rights of Indigenous People.”

This was echoed by Cristina Coronel at the launch of the report in Asuncion in December:

“What this report reveals is [a] world where things are upside down… where indigenous communities and lawyers are defending universal human rights, but instead of protecting them, the police, public prosecutors and other representatives of the government protect the cattle ranchers and agro-industrial companies responsible for illegal deforestation and evictions of Indigenous People from their ancestral lands.”

This can clearly be seen in the case of Unine Cutamurajna from the Ayoreo community of Cuyabia who denounced illegal deforestation by Brandenstein Agro-Forest Investment (BAFI). Cuyabia acquired legal title to 25,000 hectares of land in 1996; but since then it is estimated the community has lost at least 6000 hectares due to land grabs by cattle ranchers. On one occasion, in 2015, the community hijacked a bulldozer that had been clearing vast tracts of forest on land belonging to them. Instead of investigating the illegal actions of BAFI, the Government of Paraguay sent a contingent of police to recover the bulldozer.he community has subsequently suffered threats from heavily armed private security guards working for the company.

“The Government sides with the cattle ranchers because they have money. We Indigenous People don’t have money,” says Unine. “But we will keep defending our land, it doesn’t matter if they continue to threaten us. We will not give up one more single piece of our ancestral land.”

Other cases in the report include:

  • Government employee Irma Torales who, while working at the Public Registrar’s Office, refused to become involved in a case of embezzlement of funds destined for the purchase of land for indigenous communities. Her actions lead to the arrest and imprisonment of the former Director of the National Indigenous Institute of Paraguay. Despite this, Irma was subsequently demoted to a more junior role with a significant reduction in her salary.
  • Human Rights Lawyer and Director of TierraViva Julia Cabello who faced a possible one-year suspension from practicing law or disqualification from the Paraguay Bar Association for a criticism she made of a Supreme Court Decision to review the constitutionality of a law allowing the return of more than 14,404 hectares of traditional land to the Sawhoyamaxa indigenous community.

TierraViva intends to use the report to carry out continued advocacy and raise awareness of the grave situation of human rights defenders in the Chaco.

According to Villagra Carron:

“This report is a condemnation of the structural inequality in Paraguay and a call to action. The cases documented in it are by no means exhaustive but just a few examples of what is happening in a broader context of rights deprivation. We urgently need to bring this situation and the government’s complicity and/or role in perpetuating it to public attention or the situation risks becoming even more dangerous, serious and unjust.”

The report received support from the Gran Chaco Ecumenical Small Projects Fund which works to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations, groups and communities in the South American Chaco to transform the conditions of poverty and inequality and promote human rights.

To see the full report in Spanish click here.