No Trespassing: Changing and Contested Rights to Land in the Guyanese Amazon

The Makushi and Wapishana peoples of the Rupununi region of Guyana have been fighting for the rights to their traditional territories since contact with European colonists first challenged them. Although Indigenous rights to territory remain unsettled within the country, in 2013, the national government agreed to lease 8,000 hectares of unceded territory to Brazilian plantation agriculturalists, claiming that savannah agriculture is an integral component of national development strategies. The Makushi and Wapishana have identified several concerns with this agricultural project. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper exposes the inherent problems that are raised when economic and political ambitions dominate environmental and social concerns.