License to wrest away indigenous land 5/13/2009 Brazilian ranching companies eye indigenous lands to expand operations.

Brazilian cattle-ranching company Yaguarete Pora SA is seeking permission from Paraguay´s Environment Ministry to develop a portion of western Paraguay, home to uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people.

“We urge Paraguay´s government not to allow Yaguarete to work on the Totobiegosode´s land. To do so would violate their rights under international law and the UN’s Declaration on Indigenous Peoples´ Rights, and may well destroy them as a people,” said Stephen Corry, director of indigenous organization Survival in a May 5 statement.

Yaguarete Pora already owns these lands, but last year, the government revoked its environmental license after satellite photos published in September showed deforestation there. According to the organization GAT, which represents the Totobiegosode people, the company had surpassed the annual limit of permitted deforestation.

“The Totobiegosode´s presence is proof that this land is their domain, and infringing upon it by a company that deforests and destroys the habitat is an aggression and the usurpation of this indigenous peoples´ property,” said the GAT.

The organization added that the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode´s environment is also being threatened by Brazilian ranching company River Plate.

While Yaguarete has said it would maintain an eco-reserve in a small part of the forest, Survival called this “greenwashing of the most outrageous kind.”

The organization added that the move to maintain a third of the land as a “reserve” serves to distract from the fact that they plan to destroy the other two-thirds of the area, or 500 square kilometers.

Survival´s Corry called it one of the most serious threats to uncontacted indigenous peoples in any part of the world.

Survival said some of the Totobiegosode people have been contacted and are demanding legal land titles to 5,500 square kilometers (2,100 square miles) of land. —Latinamerica Press.