Luis is Indigenous leader of the Guarani Paĩ Tavyterã people of Paraguay. He heads the Paĩ Jopotyra Association of Indigenous Communities; communities that are located in the north of Paraguay near the border with Brazil.
He is an outstanding leader in the struggle to defend indigenous rights and territories, drawing from knowledge of Paĩ Tavyterã culture. Luis Arce is one of the guardians of the ancestral songs that contain the foundations of life and age-old wisdom.
Since his youth, he has been involved in the struggle for the recovery of numerous territories and the return of ancestral lands, including the Jasuka Venda Sacred Site.
He promotes the transmission of his people's knowledge to new generations.
Human rights defenders and journalists are facing significant insecurity, harassment and killings.
Land rights defenders have faced particularly violent repression. In 2012, one of the lead figures of the land rights movement, Mr Vidal Vega, former head of the Campesinos sin Tierra (Peasants without Land) and a key witness into the Curuguaty massacre, was assassinated in front of his family. According to the Paraguayan Human Rights Coordinator, between 1989 and 2013, 115 land rights defenders from campesino organisations were killed or forcefully disappeared.
