standards. In all cases, these reforms are a direct consequence of indigenous peoples’ resistance and demands that their rights be respected, protected and fulfilled. In 2007 the government of Nepal ratified ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, becoming the first country in mainland Asia to do so, and also voted in the UN General Assembly to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).  In early 2008 the government of Nepal agreed to create autonomous states based on ethnicity in at least some parts of Nepal, but what the federal map of Nepal will look like, which indigenous peoples will have autonomous states, and what governance authority will be delegated to them is not yet decided. Collective ownership of forests or rangelands by communities is not recognized in Nepal law.   Prior agreements and promises to indigenous peoples recognizing communal lands (kipat) have not been kept and these were nationalized beginning in the 1960s. Large areas of such collective lands have been incorporated in protected areas and the national forest. Indigenous peoples and other local communities do not have defined legal rights to the use of natural resources in the areas in which they reside, but some uses can be authorized by protected area administrators in some of the national parks and in buffer zones, as well as in the community forests within the national forest. The National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973 bans many customary natural resource activities including hunting and grazing.  Very limited natural resource use (such as grass harvesting) is permitted in some national parks on a fee basis and subject to limited seasons and quantities.  Protests by indigenous peoples have resulted in some increased access to natural 82 resources in several lowland national parks and wildlife reserves in recent years, but these concessions are not considered rights and in some cases have not been maintained for long.  There is no recognition of an inherent right to use plants and animals in traditional religious activities in Nepal. As a result of a number of legal and institutional dynamics, indigenous communities around the country have been historically deprived of the lands and territories they have traditionally occupied or used, often without compensation. A major turning point in this process was the 1964 Land Reform Act, which nationalized land and terminated traditional collective land tenure systems such as the kipat. The Act paved the way for the allotment and distribution of indigenous ancestral lands and, consequently, to the loss of IP’s traditional land base. These dynamics were particularly dramatic in the southern plains, where lands traditionally controlled by indigenous communities were lost to migrants from the hill districts in the 1950s and 1960s. Similarly, the Pasture Land Nationalization Act 1975/2031 B.S. nationalized traditional indigenous pasturelands, some of which were granted to commercial plantations, depriving many communities of their traditional livelihoods. This is the case of the Sherpas, whose traditional yakraising has been endangered by the gradual loss of their traditional pasture lands. This situation has pushed them into cross-border grazing in Tibet, a practice which is in turn hindered by border policies. Protected areas, including national parks, now constitute approximately 20% of the total landmass in Nepal. Often these areas were created at the expense of indigenous lands. In the Himalayas, most of the land areas of the six existing national parks cover IPs’ traditional lands. Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC)