The Honduran Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve has become a place of struggle over natural resources. This paper examines a land contest between the Miskito Indians and the Garifuna, an indigenous group and Afro-indigenous group respectively. The area in question is Lasa Pulan, a one square kilometer of forest and farmland, historically shared by both Miskito and Garifuna collectives. Through discursive analysis, this paper traces contemporary discourse and prac- tice that these actors employ to justify exclusive claims to Lasa Pulan. Such con- temporary claims are structured by longstanding colonial and postcolonial racial ideologies that stereotypically label blacks as "immoral" and "violent" and Indi- ans as "ignorant" and "backward." This paper argues, through analysis of Miskito and Garifuna claims to Lasa Pulan, that natural resource struggles are simulta- neously racial struggles, and it acquaints policy makers with the multiple tenure arrangements in pluricultural Honduras.