The Ayoreo are an ethnic group native to northern Paraguayan Chaco and eastern Bolivia.
They speak the Ayoreo language, which belongs to the Zamuco family.

The Ayoreo people are divided into several subgroups, many of whom were forced to flee the forest in the 1970s, while other groups continue to live without any contact with the outside world. The most isolated ones are known as the Totobiegosode, or 'wild boar people', and are the only uncontacted tribe in South America to have survived outside the Amazon basin.

The Ayoreo support themselves by hunting and farming, depending on the season of the year. Families - four or five per group - live together in communal houses in the forest. A central wooden pole supports a vaulted structure made of small tree branches covered with dry mud. Each family has its own hearth outside the house and they only sleep indoors if it rains.
Their most important ritual is called ‘asojna’, which translates as ‘nightjar’: the first song of the birds announces the arrival of the rainy season and begins a month of celebrations and festivities.

The Ayoreo live in settlements of single-family huts, growing pumpkins, beans and melons in the sandy soil. They hunt in the forest, preferring turtles and wild boar, as well as honey, which is found in abundance. They are divided into seven clans with exogamic peculiarities; each clan has power over certain elements, such as animals, plants, utensils, stars, etc. The shaman of each clan has the power to control these elements.

Even today there are some small groups who live in isolation, without having contact with the other Ayoreos who already live in villages.

In Paraguay, the Ayoreo were known as Moros and until the 1950s they were persecuted by the military and poachers as if they dangerous animals. In the interior of the Chaco there were signs that read: “Haga patria, mate a un indio Moro' meaning 'Do good for the country, kill an indio Moro.” The first Ayoreo seen by the Paraguayan population was in 1956: he was a ten-year-old boy named Iquebi, captured near Bahia Negra, locked in a cage and transported by boat to Asunción, where he was exhibited to the public as an animal.

The first peaceful contact between a group of Ayoreo and Paraguayan society took place in 1962, when they presented themselves to a group of soldiers who offered them water and food. The Paraguayan state then entrusted the Salesians with the task of looking after them on a large property of 20,000 hectares with access to the Paraguayan river, where the first groups of Ayoreo settled.

In 1979 and 1986, the American fundamentalist missionaries of the New Tribe Mission helped to organise de facto 'manhunts'. As a result, large groups of Ayoreo were forced to leave the forest, many were killed during the clashes, while others would die of diseases for which they had no immune protection.

The evangelical missionaries of the New Tribe Mission still exert an enormous influence on their daily lives, so much so that their asojna ritual and many other celebrations have been abolished.

According to a 2013 University of Maryland study, "the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode forest is being devastated at the highest rate of deforestation in the world." The study analyses satellite data collected from 2000 to 2012. * study conducted in 2013 by M.C. Hansen: "High Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change.

Landless people have no choice but to work as underpaid labourers in cattle farms, which have taken over most of their land. As ranching companies continue to destroy the forest, the uncontacted Ayoreo live on the run to escape the bulldozers and soon enough might have nowhere to hide.

Since the 1970s, international NGOs have been working with the Ayoreo communities to help them gain ownership of 550,000 hectares of their ancestral land. But the pressure on the forest is immense: almost all of the tribe's ancestral land is now in the hands of landowners who clear it to raise cattle. According to a survey by the NGO Earthsight, the main buyer of leather from the ranches planted on these lands would be Italy itself, which in 2018 alone imported 61% of it.

Paguay's law and constitution recognise the right of indigenous peoples to own traditional lands. For more than 30 years, the Ayoreo have claimed part of their ancestral territory but pressure from landowners has not only prevented its allocation, but levelled new areas. If the bulldozers destroy this area too, the uncontacted Totobiegosodes will no longer exist. Their already sedentary relatives are fighting fiercely to protect it: in Bolivia, the Ayoreo are represented by the organisation CANOB (Central Ayoreo Nativo del Oriente Boliviano). In 2002, a foundation for the Ayoreo, UNAP (Unión Nativa Ayoreo del Paraguay), was also set up in Paraguay. These organizations have asked the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights to protect and save their forest.

This is certainly not the first time that the Ayoreo have tried to rebel against this system of resource exploitation. In 1993, they presented a formal request for recognition of their territorial rights in the face of a rapidly expanding agro-industrial sector. But as this request went unheeded, in 2013 they turned to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to help them.

In 2016, formal negotiations were initiated with the Paraguayan government, but after five years and 42 meetings that led to no results, the Ayoreo withdrew. Meanwhile, the destruction of their forest continued, which is why the indigenous people are now writing again to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Survival's researcher Teresa Mayo said: “The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode have called for a halt to negotiations because the government was only trying to drag its feet, while at the same time leaving the way clear for the rampant destruction of the Ayoreo forest. The state knows that all it needs to do is do nothing to condemn the uncontacted Ayoreo to death.”