The Indigenous World 2026: Costa Rica

Written on 22 April 2026. Posted in Costa Rica

The eight Indigenous Peoples who inhabit the country make up 2.4% of the population. Seven of them are of Chibchense origin: Huetar (in Quitirrisí and Zapatón), Maleku (in Guatuso), Bribri (in Salitre, Cabagra, Talamanca Bribri and Këköldi), Cabécar (in Alto Chirripó, Tayni, Talamanca Cabécar, Telire and China Kichá, Bajo Chirripó, Nairi Awari and Ujarrás), Brunca (in Boruca and Curré), Ngöbe (in Abrojos Montezuma, Coto Brus and Conte Burica, Alto de San Antonio and Osa) and Brörán (in Térraba). The eighth, of Mesoamerican origin, is the Chorotega in Matambú. According to the 2010 National Census, just over 100,000 people identified as Indigenous in the country.^[i]

Although 7% of the national territory (3,344 km²) is occupied by 24 Indigenous territories, a large part has been invaded by non-indigenous occupants: 52.3% of the Bribri area in Këköldi, 53.1% in Boruca (Brunca territory), 56.4% in Térraba (Brörán people), 58.7% in Guatuso (Maleku people) and up to 88.4% in Zapatón (Huetar territory).^[ii]

In Costa Rica, 20% of the general population lives below the poverty line but, in the case of Indigenous Peoples, the figures are alarming: Cabécar, 94.3%; Ngöbe, 87%; Brörán, 85.0%; Bribri, 70.8%; Brunka, 60.7%; Maleku, 44.3%; Chorotega, 35.5%; and Huetar, 34.2%.^[iii]

Costa Rica ratified ILO Convention 169 in 1993 and incorporated recognition of its multicultural character into the Political Constitution of the Republic. Even so, in 2021, the then Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples indicated that, “Although article 1 of the Constitution, amended in 2015, stipulates that Costa Rica is a multi-ethnic and multicultural State, it does not recognize the existence of the indigenous peoples”.^[iv]

Indigenous Law 6,172 of 1977 recognized Indigenous organizations and established the legal status of Indigenous Peoples, along with mechanisms to prevent the appropriation of land by non-indigenous persons, and procedures and funds for expropriation and compensation. However, this law remained unimplemented until December 2023 and, since then, there have been only timid attempts to recover territories, without respecting the spirit of the Indigenous Law or Indigenous power structures.^[i] On the contrary, the state has tolerated the invasion and dispossession of Indigenous lands by landowners and local politicians. Indigenous organizations have been demanding the restoration of their lands for decades. The slow pace of studies and the lack of political will to address the problem have led to the emergence of a land recovery movement that has been evicting illegal occupants since 2011.

A regulation subsequent to the Indigenous Law imposed a concept alien to Indigenous traditional power structures, the Indigenous Integral Development Associations (ADII). These are supervised by the National Directorate for Community Development, an entity that lacks the capacity to understand Indigenous rights and does not have an intercultural approach. UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Francisco Calí Tzay, considered that “as imposed State institutions that report to the executive branch, [they] are not suited to guaranteeing representation for Indigenous Peoples, which have their own system of government.”^[ii]

The Indigenous organizations that enjoy legitimacy and act in defence of their rights include the National Indigenous Roundtable of Costa Rica, the National Front of Indigenous Peoples (FRENAPI), the Bribri-Cabécar Indigenous Network, the Ngöbe Association of the Pacific, the Regional Aboriginal Association of Dikes, the National Forum of Indigenous Women, the Inter-University Indigenous Movement, and the South-South Struggle Coordination (CLSS), a group of Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and peasant associations.

This article is part of the 40th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. Find The Indigenous World 2026 in full here

More than three decades waiting for the Indigenous Peoples’ Autonomous Development Law 

The year 2025 brought no major changes in the Indigenous Peoples’ situation of socio-economic exclusion, with constant violations of their right to self-determination and numerous barriers faced in accessing justice.^[1]

The draft Law on the Autonomous Development of Indigenous Peoples was published in the Official Gazette in 1994. By 2025, 31 years had passed since Parliament refused to discuss it and the executive branch failed to give it priority. In addition, there is still strong racist resistance among the private sector and conservative political parties, which do not accept a concept of territory that does not consider land as a commodity.

Imposition of forms of organization alien to Indigenous systems

As noted above, the state continues to violate the 1977 Indigenous Law and Convention 169 by imposing a form of organization on Indigenous territories: the Integral Development Associations (ADI). Many of these are controlled by non-indigenous people linked to absentee landowners or other invaders of Indigenous territories. In its statement of 26 February, the National Front of Indigenous Peoples (FRENAPI) denounced the seizure of authority within the ADI of the Cabécar Territory of Ujarrás, whose president is not a member of the Cabécar people nor recognized by any ancestral clan. In this regard, it stated: “The seizure of authority by Nelson Zúñiga in Ujarrás renders its actions null and void and even constitutes crimes with the complicity and support of the state, for example, the National Directorate for Community Development.”^[2]

Persistent lack of access to justice for Indigenous Peoples

Given the historical impunity enjoyed by the murderers of Indigenous Peoples in a country that claims to be a model in terms of human rights, the Annual Report of the Ombudsman's Office repeated that the eight Indigenous Peoples of Costa Rica face a “historical lag in addressing structural barriers (...), as well as limitations on the full enjoyment of rights”.^[3] In August 2024, the Ombudsman's Office therefore held a Forum on Access to Justice for Indigenous Peoples in Costa Rica with the aim of “creating a participatory space involving representatives of Indigenous Peoples, public institutions and human rights defenders”. The forum, which featured the distinguished participation of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Francisco Calí Tzay, “sought to highlight and reflect on the barriers and acts of discrimination that these populations face in accessing justice due to institutional omissions”.^[4]

The Special Rapporteur emphasized the main barriers to accessing justice facing Indigenous Peoples, as observed during his official visit to Costa Rica in December 2021:

• Right to land: this is the most violated right in the country. Although Costa Rica has highly advanced legislation, it is rarely implemented due to an ignorance of the regulatory framework and a lack of political will on the part of state institutions. This situation causes delays in land titling and land consolidation, as well as delays in recovery due to the judicialization of procedures.
• Actions of the National Children's Trust: it uproots children from their culture, which is why it was recommended that it review its procedures.
• Environmental protection: the right to free self-determination over land and its resources must be respected.
• Access to justice: Indigenous Peoples distrust the local justice system due to: a lack of investigation of individual cases; a requirement for evidence that is not subsequently assessed adequately; and the ineffectiveness of internal mechanisms for sanctioning the actions of court officers. Furthermore, the judicial service has no gender perspective, and its staff are unaware of international standards on Indigenous rights. Finally, cultural expertise is used inappropriately, and Indigenous people are not consulted about their culture.

The forum concluded with Indigenous leaders identifying the main problems and barriers facing them in asserting their rights as Costa Rican Indigenous Peoples.^[5]

Insecurity for Indigenous defenders of the territory

In August 2025, an urgent report was submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and alerts were sent out to individuals, organizations and media outlets in solidarity, documenting the serious and imminent risk facing the Brörán elder, Pablo Sibar, of the Térraba Territory.^[6] The life of the long-standing Indigenous rights defender was in grave danger, resulting in extreme concern and the fear of reliving another tragic chapter in the struggle for Indigenous rights in Costa Rica. Sibar, a beneficiary of precautionary measures granted by the IACHR, has experienced several acts of violence in recent years:

Due to his role as a traditional authority and defender of the collective rights of his people, he has been the target of repeated threats, direct attacks against his physical integrity by non-state actors, plus a systematic environment of discrimination, both from the ADI of Térraba and various state authorities.^[7]

In April 2015, the IACHR granted precautionary measures^[8] in favour of the Bribri people of Salitre and the Brörán people of Térraba. In that resolution, the IACHR recognized the risk faced by the beneficiaries due to their work of defending the territory and human rights. The precautionary measures remain in force to date but have not yet been implemented, despite the fact that two people involved in the struggle for land reform and recovery, Indigenous leaders from Salitre and Térraba, were murdered in 2019 and 2020.^[9]

Pablo Sibar has owned a recovered farm in the Térraba Territory for 13 years, 10 hectares devoted to environmental conservation and community water management. On 7 August 2025, the ADI of Térraba issued a fraudulent certification to legitimize the occupation of his farm by two non-indigenous people who are not listed in the Brörán Database maintained by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. On Sunday 10 August, two non-indigenous individuals invaded Sibar's farm, claiming to have the support of the ADI. Called to the site, the police refused to evict the usurpers. On 11 August, Pablo Sibar went to the Buenos Aires Public Prosecutor's Office to report the ADI for issuing the illegal certification and for trespass but his complaint was not admitted, and he was advised to go through the ordinary agrarian process. “He went to the Agrarian Court to file a lawsuit, where he was informed that the usurper had already filed a lawsuit against him and that there were no public defenders available in Buenos Aires.”^[10] Amidst the refusal of the police, the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Agrarian Court to uphold the rights of the Brörán Indigenous people, a spontaneous movement of human rights activists, people from state universities and journalists sprang up, sending out warning messages and publishing articles denouncing the serious and imminent risk.

For several years now, Mr. Sibar's opposition to the ADI in Térraba “has been accompanied by public denunciations and active monitoring of acts of corruption, administrative irregularities and decisions contrary to the collective rights of the Brörán people. This legitimate exercise of defence has provoked increasingly serious reprisals, violating both his individual rights and the Indigenous institutions protected by international law.”^[11] Indigenous leaders and people involved in land recovery continue to be threatened. In this regard, the Ombudsman's Office noted that “the State has not yet guaranteed an effective response and has warned of escalating violence in territories such as China Kichá and Cabagra, where the lives of defenders continue to be at risk”.^[12] One paragraph of the FRENAPI press release clearly analyses the Indigenous movement’s lack of access to justice and inability to live in peace:^[13]

Five years after the murder of Jehry Rivera (24 February 2020), a Brörán from Térraba, and six years after the murder of Uniwak Sergio Rojas (18 March 2019), a Bribri from Salitre, both murders remain unpunished. The causes and those responsible for these crimes remain unchanged: land grabbing by non-indigenous aggressors, discrimination, injustice, violence, and abandonment and indifference on the part of the state and government.

In 2025, land usurpers and their hitmen continued to act with impunity, threatening and murdering, without the state taking measures capable of ending this structural problem. As previously written in these pages, no changes have been observed in the structural causes of the systemic exclusion of the Indigenous Peoples of Costa Rica. In particular, “those related to territorial rights and self-determination remain unresolved, and there is still resistance within institutions and the judicial system to addressing them from a rights-based perspective”.^[14] Unfortunately, no positive change is in sight for 2026, even with the election of a new government at the start of the year.

Dr Bettina Durocher is an agricultural engineer with a Master's degree in rural development, a postgraduate degree in gender studies and a Doctorate in education and intercultural mediation. She has published studies on Indigenous livelihoods, socio-environmental conflict and Indigenous women's knowledge of food security and forest conservation. Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This article is part of the 40th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. Find The Indigenous World 2026 in full here

Notes and references

^[1] Durocher, Bettina. “Costa Rica”. In The Indigenous World 2025, Mamo, Dwayne (ed.). IWGIA, 2025. https://iwgia.org/es/costa-rica/5741-mi-2025-costa-rica.html

^[2] FRENAPI. “Denuncia sobre la reciente recuperación de tierras en el Territorio Cabécar de Ujarrás.” Facebook, 26 February 2025. https://www.facebook.com/frenapicostarica/?locale=fr_CA

^[3] Ombudsman's Office of the Republic. Informe Annual de Labores 2024-2025, p.112. https://www.dhr.go.cr/defensoria_transparente/informes_institucionales/informes/labores/documentos/19_if24_25.pdf

^[4] Ibid., p.191.

^[5] Ombudsman's Office of the Republic. “Memoria: FORO Acceso a justicia para los Pueblos Indígenas en Costa Rica.” San José, Costa Rica, August 2025.

^[6] “Presentan informe urgente ante la CIDH para proteger a defensor indígena broran Pablo Sibar.” Surcos Digital, 12 August 2025. https://surcosdigital.com/presentan-informe-urgente-ante-la-cidh-para-proteger-a-defensor-indigena-broran-pablo-sibar/;

Víctor Madrigal Sánchez V. and Vindas Sánchez, D. Public statement. National University Ecumenical School of Religious Sciences Indigenous Peoples Programme.; and

Chacón Soto, V. “Ante invasión de tierras, denuncia riesgo grave e inminente para el líder indígena Pablo Sibar.” Semanario Universidad, 12 August 2025. https://semanariouniversidad.com/pais/ante-invasion-de-tierras-denuncian-riesgo-grave-e-inminente-para-el-lider-indigena-pablo-sibar/

^[7] Informe de alerta de situación de riesgo para el defensor indígena, Pablo Sibar Sibar, beneficiario de la Medida Cautelar MC 321/12 CIDH (11 August 2025)

^[8] On 30 April 2015, in response to a request submitted by Mr Pablo Sibar Sibar, Mr Sergio Rojas Ortiz and other Indigenous defenders from the territories of Salitre and Térraba, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued Resolution 16/15 granting Precautionary Measure No. 321/12 in favour of the Bribri peoples of Salitre and Brörán (Teribe) of Térraba.

^[9] Durocher, Bettina. “Costa Rica”. In The Indigenous World 2025, Mamo, Dwayne (ed.). IWGIA, 2021. https://iwgia.org/es/costa-rica/5741-mi-2025-costa-rica.html

^[10] Chacón Soto, Vinicio. “Ante invasión de tierras, denuncian “riesgo grave e inminente” para el líder indígena Pablo Sibar”. Semanario Universidad, 12 August 2025.

^[11] Informe de alerta de situación de riesgo para el defensor indígena, Pablo Sibar Sibar, beneficiario de la Medida Cautelar MC 321/12 CIDH. 11 August 2025.

^[12] Ombudsman's Office of the Republic. Informe Annual de Labores 2024-2025, p.113. https://www.dhr.go.cr/defensoria_transparente/informes_institucionales/informes/labores/documentos/19_if24_25.pdf

^[13] FRENAPI, op. cit.

^[14] Camacho Nassar, Carlos. “Costa Rica”. In The Indigenous World 2021, Mamo, Dwayne (ed.). IWGIA, 2021.

Tags: Land rights, Human rights, Indigenous Peoples Human Rights Defenders