Ayoreo Land Rights

The Ayoreo of Bolivia and Paraguay are swamp and dry forest people, nomadic hunter-gatherers. They were first colonised in the 1940’s by missionaries and farmers, whom they resisted vigorously for many decades.

However, today most Ayoreo land is owned privately by loggers and agribusiness. There remains only one free band living traditionally, avoiding colonial contact – the Totobiegosode.

Constitutionally, all Ayoreo should be free to enjoy customary rights to their land in this way, as the law of Paraguay supposedly guarantees native title to traditional owners. However, in reality the native peoples of the region have mostly been dispossessed, forced from their land by colonists pursuing business interests.

Most of the remnants of traditional lands regarded as native-owned are actually owned by the NTM (New Tribes Mission), a Christian group that in the past used converts to kidnap other Ayoreo from the forest and imprison them at the missions.