 However, much of their old land had been degraded by prospectors, gold-panning, settlement or cattle breeding (six out of eight of their old villages had been destroyed), but one large stretch of unspoiled dense forest could still be identified.In 1994 the tribe elders met with Xingu Park leaders and FUNAI to demand the right to move back to their original territory, and were eventually allowed 4,950 square kilometres from their ancient traditional territory along the Iriri River located on the border of Mato Grosso and Pará states.Between 1995 and 1996, the Panará gradually moved to a new village called Nãsẽpotiti in their traditional land, and on 1 November 1996 the Justice Minister declared the Panará Indigenous Land a "permanent indigenous possession".