CWS marks 3rd year of indigenous rights initiative in South America's Gran Chaco

Guaraní leader Claudio Kuarasi. Before a CWS partner in Bolivia helped his community claim title to land, half its produce went to the landowner. Photo: D. Allen/CWS

August 8, 2007

The 200,000 indigenous people of the South American Gran Chaco own a fraction of the land they once called home. In Paraguay, native people legally own 1.8 percent of the land. In Bolivia, less than an eighth of the land that native communities claim is declared Native Commune Lands.

The loss of land is one of the most crucial problems facing indigenous people, choking off their means of livelihood and access to customary foods and plant medicines. Land loss undermines religious and cultural identity, and breaks up extended families. Globalization and gas and water extraction are mounting a fresh assault on indigenous people. Arable land is increasingly devoted to cattle breeding and genetically modified soy for the international market. Waste from tin, silver, lead and other minerals is killing off the Pilcomayo River which some indigenous communities fish for a living.

In a four-year program that started in 2005, Church World Service and five partners in the Grand Chaco are defending the rights of the Ayoreos, Guaraní, Maskoy, Moqoit, Nivaclé, Qom, Weenhayek, Wichi and Yschör Matarajos indigenous peoples of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay who have lost land and undergone longstanding racism and exclusion.

The CWS program is training these communities on national laws governing their right to land and access to natural resources. CWS and its five Chaco partners plan to strengthen indigenous claims to 150,000 hectares of land. Native representatives are also trained on territorial management plans based on traditional practices. CWS also advocates for indigenous rights to water and land through the United Nations and other fora.

To learn more about how CWS supports the water rights of indigenous people in Bolivia, download our latest resource on water, A River In Their Veins. To learn more about CWS engagement with indigenous people elsewhere, download our Spring 07 newsletter, Weave Anew.