The National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act provides no recognition of indigenous peoples’ right to consultation or to access their traditional lands and resources, while giving quasi-judicial powers to the park chief wardens. There is no national legal basis for the identification and protection of sacred places or for assurance that indigenous peoples will continue to have access to and control over their management. IP communities have lost their ownership of these with land nationalization.   Villages often no longer have control over decisions about the protection of their sacred sites because new land management institutions in conservation areas, buffer zones, and community forests are based on regional, multi-village governance rather than on governance by individual villages. Land-loss and forced displacement over time has resulted in the dissolution of communities, the break-up of families, and the attendant lack of registration of many members of IP  communities, making access to simple services such as health and education a challenge, if not an impossibility. IPs in Nepal are lacking citizenship certificates, and the Government of Nepal has made notable efforts to remedy this situation. But according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nepal, an estimated 800,000 individuals still lack citizenship registration and are therefore considered de facto stateless. The action for claiming land rights in Nepal include: capacity development of activists and community leaders; formation and strengthening peoples’ organizations; local level awareness; Indigenous people of Haku, Rasuwa rally in Dhunch Rasuwa demanding for their land rights. Photo by CSRC Lok Niti 83

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