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The Enxet are an indigenous people of about 17,000 living in the Gran Chaco region of western Paraguay. Originally hunter-gatherers, many are now forced to supplement their livelihood as laborers on the cattle ranches that have encroached upon their dwindling natural forest habitat.[1] Nevertheless, the Enxet are engaged in an ongoing conflict with the government and ranchers,[1] who want to destroy what remains of the forest to open the land for massive settlement. Today,[when?] only a handful of Enxet are still maintain their traditional way of life, while the majority live in small settlements sponsored by various missionary organizations.[1] The Enxet and Enlhet languages are still vigorous.
In 2006, 90 Enxet families, the Sawhoyamaxa, won a legal battle to 14,404 hectares of their traditional lands, bought up by Heribert Roedel.[2] The land was signed over in 2011.[3]
The right to water was considered in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights case of the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay.[4] The issues involved the states failure to acknowledge indigenous communities' property rights over ancestral lands.[citation needed] In 1991, the state removed the indigenous Sawhoyamaxa community from the land resulting in their loss of access to water, food, schooling and health services.[4] This fell within the scope of the American Convention on Human Rights; article 4, encroaching the right to life.[5] Water is included in this right, as part of access to land. The courts required the lands to be returned, compensation provided, and basic goods and services to be implemented, while the community was in the process of having their lands returned.[6]
In 2013, the land still not being vacated, the Sawhoyamaxa re-occupied the land.[7]
In 2014 the Paraguay Supreme Court rejected a claim that government expropriation of the land (in order to transfer it to the Sawhoyamaxa), was unconstitutional.[7]
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