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Misiones is a small province at the northeastern boundary of Argentina that is uniquely different in geography, biodiversity, and ethnicity from the rest of the country. The abundant natural and cultural diversity in Misiones Province is similar to the southern regions of its neighbors, Paraguay and Brazil. It is the only province of the country that still contains a portion of the Interior Atlantic Forest, known as Paraná Forest in Argentina, and much of its commerce depends upon products of the rainforest or tourism within the rainforest and its waterfalls and rivers.
Around 1860, the Mbya Guaraní began to repopulate the forest where they lived in small communities scattered throughout the province. Today they continue to keep their villages in relative isolation from the greater Argentine culture. Their traditional economy was based on hunting, fishing, and collection of other food and medicinal resources from the forest however few Mbya communities have access to enough land to live in this cultural manner any more. Currently, Mbya in Argentina are described as living within three primary groups: Nomadic, Somewhat Nomadic, and Relatively Sedentary. Two common characteristics of Mbya villages, regardless of how they are classified, is their lack of sanitary facilities and running water, with either river water or well water used for personal hygiene, laundry, and for cooking. Electricity in a community is often determined by whether a bilingual school has recently been constructed by the government. Villages that are without a school may not have electrical power or villages with an older school may only have electricity at the school site.
Mbya who are described in the Nomadic category live in small, mobile isolated villages and avoid contact with outsiders, including tourists, as much as possible. Their housing is built from reeds and palms that cover a lean-to frame.This type of housing provides shelter from heavy rainforest rains, allows air flow during the intense summer heat, and can be easily assembled or disassembled and moved when necessary. These communities lack basic services and bilingual school access for their children. Extended families live nearby and may work in kinship groups in productive activities, such as in tending gardens in small disconnected rotating plots or hunting if possible. Families in these types of communities usually only speak the unwritten Mbya language and seldom have any type of formal education. Most of the nomadic communities are found on the forested eastern side of Misiones Province, including those in the Yaboti Biosphere Reserve.
In contrast, Mbya settlements classified as Somewhat Nomadic base their economic livelihood on agriculture and on producing wooden handicrafts and baskets to be marketed to potential tourists who may travel their way. Many of these communities are located near towns or routes that attract tourists, with families setting up temporary kiosks to sell handicrafts to tourists. Families, including children, may also work in seasonal yerba or tung collection for local farmers. Housing varies as an indicator of the stability and resources of the community. Homes in these communities range in structure from lean-to-frames to small one-room cabins, depending upon access to seasonal labor and lumber and tools for construction. Although some of these communities may have electricity, they lack basic sanitation and running water. People living in communities, such as Kaagui Porá and Guapoy, may speak a combination of languages: Mbya, yopara or Paraguayan Guaraní, and Spanish. Because there may be access to a bilingual school, children and a few adults have some formal education and more literacy than the Mbya living in nomadic villages.
In the Relatively Sedentary communities such as Fortin Mbororé and Yryapú some of the men work as day labors or on local farms. The community of Fortin Mbororé has also been actively engaged in tourism for many years and some of the artisan families derive a large portion of their income manufacturing baskets and wooden handicrafts to be sold either directly to tourists or through shops and hotels. Housing in the sedentary communities also varies by the stability and resources of the family or community. In Fortin Mbororé incomes diverge among families, however many of the homes are either one-room cabins or larger permanent lean-to-frames without doors. In 2003 the community of Yryapú was forced to move and their homes now vary from small lean-to-shelters to 15 small stucco homes, without bathrooms, built by the government to compensate the community for loss of some of its land. Both of these communities are located at the tri-frontier with Brazil and Paraguay, and many of the residents speak a combination of Paraguayan Guaraní, Spanish, and Portuguese, along with Mbya.
The largest number of Mbya people are described as being within the Relatively Sedentary group, while the Nomadic group contains the fewest individuals. Their shift from the traditional culture and economy, which requires access to large areas of land, to more sedentary agriculture and dependence on tourism occurred gradually with increasing tourism in Misiones Province over the last half century. Moreover, in the last twenty years, the provincial government of Misiones Province has been assigning Mbya communities to permanent small parcels of land, ranging from 200-300 hectares, with these hectares divided into individual family plots.
Over the years, land loss has resulted in significant challenges for some communities to retain adequate amounts of territory to feed and support their residents in a traditional manner of hunting, fishing, gardening and collecting resources from rainforest environment. Even though tourism is available to some communities to augment their traditional economic systems, the income derived from tourism programs has not been sufficient to bring Mbya communities out of deep poverty. The loss of food sources along with abject poverty has led to serious health problems in many Mbya communities, with infants and children being the most at risk to these conditions. In the last ten years a startling number of Mbya infants and children died from malnutrition or illnesses related to undernutrition, even in communities that were in close proximity to grocery stores and restaurants frequented by the national culture and visiting tourists. Furthermore health problems in Mbya communities are exacerbated by a constellation of other factors including lack of sanitation, lack of access to modern medical facilities, and an underlying mistrust of western medical practices when they are available.