Author Description

For indigenous peoples in Asia, as in many parts of the world, forests have traditionally represented their ancestral lands and their livelihoods. Yet in recent years, the region has lost more than half of its forests. Forests and Indigenous Peoples of Asia shows how forest-dwellers' survival is increasingly threatened due to economic and cultural impoverishment, human rights abuses, land loss and a rapid integration into the global marketplace. While the Report takes a broad · approach to these themes throughout Asia, it focuses on five states: Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand. It describes how logging, mining and hydropower schemes are displacing more and more indigenous peoples, with settlers and commercial plantations occupying their lands. The authors demonstrate that in the face of such opposition, indigenous peoples have been far from passive. Forests and Indigenous Peoples of Asia discusses indigenous peoples' growing mobilization against this environmental destruction, the loss of their lands and their livelihoods. The Report also analyses recent changes in governmental policy towards indigenous peoples and forest-dwellers, along with an accessible overview of relevant international agreements on these issues. The Report concludes with a set of recommendations which are aimed at safeguarding and promoting indigenous peoples' rights in the region.