Ayoreo Groups in Isolation

The accelerated disappearance of their territory due to deforestation, mining exploitation, cattle ranching, monoculture, infrastructure works, among other activities, exposes them to situations of forced contact.

Most of the territory currently used by the uncontacted groups is in the hands of private owners: ranchers and investors, individuals and companies—largely of Brazilian nationality—a situation that also constitutes a violation of border security law. A tiny part of the territory is preserved through national parks or protected areas.

For the groups in isolation, it is increasingly difficult to travel along their ancient annual migration paths, access parts of the habitat that are vital for their life and survival, and remain in contact with each other.

In recent years, due to the voracious advance of the environmental exploitation frontier by private owners, as well as large infrastructure works, the presence of signs of displacement of these groups has increased. The fragmentation, violent transformation, and disappearance of their territory increasingly expose them to events of unwanted contact, disease contagion, and physical death.

The climate crisis adds a large-scale threat, since water scarcity, rising temperatures, drought, and the disappearance of flora and fauna species expose these groups to situations of unwanted contact due to thirst and the loss of food sovereignty.

A significant factor is missionary action, which still persists in the 21st century. To this day, missionary groups remain that try to force contact situations with these groups in order to convert them to their religion, thereby “taming” them and integrating them into the surrounding society, always in conditions of marginality. In Paraguay, the occupants of lands where isolated groups move promote these missionary endeavors with interest, since they fulfill the purpose of extracting these groups from their territories. In addition to the catastrophic consequences—deaths, contagion of diseases, and reduction to undignified living conditions—the survival of forced conversions constitutes acts of ethnocide: the Ayoreo, in their contacts with missionaries, are forced to deny their culture and worldview.