thumb|200px|Enxet people in an engraving of 1861 published in [[Le Tour du Monde.]]
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. Nevertheless, the Enxet are engaged in an ongoing conflict with the government and ranchers, The land was signed over in 2011.
Lingering Effects of the Chaco War on the Enxet People
The Enxet tribe suffered devastating blows during the Chaco War period (1932-1935). The Chaco War was fought between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of natural resources in the Chaco region of South America. The front of this war stretched directly through Chaco territory, ravaging ancestral lands and severely disrupting cultural way of life.
During the military colonization of Chaco, the Enxet verbal history was damaged, as members of the tribe were killed before sharing their history. This would lead to further devastation among the populace of the Chaco region.
In the aftermath of Paraguay's victory in the Chaco War, the government became more committed to settling and developing the Chaco. Subsequently, much of Enxet land would be divided, deforested, and given to cattle farmers. The deforestation coupled with the overgrazing of cattle left the land forever scarred.
Court case, water and other rights
The right to water was considered in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights case of the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay. The issues involved the state's failure to acknowledge indigenous communities' property rights over ancestral lands. 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. 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.
Re-occupation
In 2013, the land still not being vacated, the Sawhoyamaxa re-occupied the land.
Supreme court ruling
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.