In the northern Paraguayan Chaco, three Ayoreo leaders are facing criminal charges after calling for a fair and sufficient state response to a drought and forest fires. The case occurs in a territory where the forest is receding rapidly, Ayoreo groups persist in voluntary isolation, and communities resist deforestation. How did an episode of environmental crisis end in a legal case against forest defenders?
Rights recognized, realities denied
Paraguay is home to more than 140,000 indigenous people belonging to nineteen Indigenous Peoples. Although the State formally recognizes their territorial and cultural rights, there is still a lack of water, food, access to justice, and basic services in their territories. For many communities, state presence is manifested more through control and criminalization than through effective protection policies.
This situation is clearly reflected in the Ayoreo 2 de Enero Community, located in Filadelfia, in the northern Paraguayan Chaco. The Ayoreo people historically inhabited a territory of more than 30 million hectares, located between Paraguay and Bolivia. However, this territory has been largely privatized, fenced off, and deforested. Today, the communities have increasingly limited space for their subsistence, while the advance of the extractive frontier continues to threaten their ancestral territory.
It should be noted that Ayoreo groups still live in voluntary isolation in this territory, whose survival depends directly on the Chaco forest’s existence and continuity. At the same time, the Paraguayan Chaco is undergoing one of the most accelerated deforestation processes in the world, driven by extensive cattle ranching, monocultures, mining and large infrastructure projects, such as the bioceanic corridor, which connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean through South America and crosses the northern territory of the Paraguayan Chaco and other southern countries, such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
From climate emergency to criminal prosecution
In August 2024, the community suffered extreme drought and forest fires. Faced with this emergency, the National Emergency Secretariat (SEN), the state entity in charge of providing humanitarian aid in such climatic emergencies, arrived with insufficient food aid, based on an outdated census that did not reflect the actual number of families affected. Faced with this situation, Ayoreo indigenous community leaders demanded that the food be distributed equitably and in sufficient quantities.
Tension increased when an official took photographs without consent, prompting the community to demand that state workers leave the territory. Shortly thereafter, SEN officials filed a criminal complaint for serious coercion, damage, and disturbance of the public peace against three leaders: Jorge Ajihi Chiqueno Pasoraja, Bernardo Chiqueno Pasoroja, and Utocadi Angel Chiqueno.
Although the case was initially shelved, in 2025 it was reactivated amid a broader territorial dispute: the community, together with neighboring communities, demanded that the landowners stop the deforestation that threatens the Chaco forest and puts at risk both settled families and the Ayoreo groups in voluntary isolation. The now-criminalized leaders have been an important part of the defense of the forest, as they were signatories to legal actions against deforestation in the Faro Moro area, a process that is currently before the Supreme Court of Justice.
The case has gone through multiple stages marked by irregularities. In addition to the absurd accusations, there was an attempt to take statements without a qualified interpreter. There is also a formal accusation filed in December 2025, a preliminary hearing suspended in February 2026, and a new hearing pending for April 2026.
Currently, the accused indigenous leaders are under alternative measures of imprisonment. Since 2024, they must appear in court every two months to sign in. The entire process obliges them to make long journeys from their communities, leaving even a day early to attend the hearings.
As for possible penalties, they face charges of serious coercion, with penalties of up to 3 years in prison; damage to a thing of common interest, also with penalties of up to 3 years; and disturbing the public peace, which can carry up to 10 years in prison. This process has had profound psychological, physical, and economic consequences, often invisible, both at the individual level and in the families of the criminalized leaders.
This process not only affects the directly criminalized leaders, but also sends a threatening message to other indigenous communities that are demanding the right to free, prior, and informed consultation in the face of projects such as the bioceanic corridor, the international bridge in the Carmelo Peralta area, and the advance of extractive activities in their territories.
The role of the Legal Defense and Sanctuary Fund
Thus, criminalization is part of a strategy that seeks to weaken leadership and community organization in territories where powerful extractive interests are advancing, linked to cattle-ranching sectors with strong political influence, and grouped with other actors, such as the Rural Association of Paraguay. In this case, it sends a clear message to indigenous communities that defending the forest and life can become a personal risk, leaving them more exposed to reprisals, threats, or new criminal cases. Meanwhile, those who profit from deforestation and dispossession continue to act with a wide margin of impunity.
This case came to IPRI through the Legal Defense and Sanctuary Fund, a mechanism that provides legal and emergency support to indigenous defenders and community leaders who face threats of criminalization, illegal detention, forced eviction, or violence because of their advocacy work.
In the Ayoreo 2 de Enero Community, the Fund’s support is aimed at providing criminalized leaders with specialized technical defense and fundamental resources to sustain the criminal process with greater guarantees. This support helps cover legal and logistical costs that would otherwise be a barrier to continuing the defense of the territory and participating fully and fairly in the judicial process.
The accompaniment also seeks to protect the continuity of community leadership and, therefore, community organization, preventing criminalization from limiting their ability to demand justice and defend their collective rights.
What this case reveals about the State and the justice system
The story of the Ayoreo 2 de Enero Community reveals a profound contradiction: when it comes to guaranteeing water, food, or protection from the climate crisis, the State appears weak or absent. But when communities question deforestation, defend life, or demand dignified responses, the state apparatus responds with force through the criminal justice system.
This case shows a justice system that acts with greater severity against those who defend rights than against those who destroy the forest. And it reveals a State that, despite recognizing indigenous rights in its legal framework, still fails to fully guarantee them in practice.
