Why have some Indigenous groups in Paraguay been threatened with the loss of their traditional lands?

Some Indigenous groups in Paraguay face the threat of losing their traditional lands due to a combination of forced assimilation and the encroachment of their territories by Brazilian loggers and landless peasants.1

This displacement is part of a broader, complex issue of land tenure in Paraguay. The country has a highly skewed system of land ownership, a legacy that traces back to land sales following the War of the Triple Alliance and was further exacerbated by the distribution of state-owned land to political cronies during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. As the agricultural frontier has expanded—driven by large-scale production of commodities like soybeans and the growth of cattle ranching—conflicts over land have intensified. These pressures, alongside the ongoing challenges of land reform, continue to jeopardize the ancestral territories and welfare of the country's Indigenous peoples, whose protection is the official responsibility of the Institute of the Paraguayan Indigenous.21