and sheer survival challenges they all face; and the solutions put forth to address them. Bangladesh The situation of indigenous peoples in Bangladesh is typified by the inhabitants of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in the southeastern part of the country vs. the plains or lowland people. Those living in the area covered by the CHT enjoy more rights on land and natural resources compared to the groups living outside the CHT due to their special legal and political status. In contrast, the plains people are considered worse off as they are not accorded similar rights. Yet, these two groups do share a common fate. IPs’ customary land in both the plain areas and the CHT has been leased out to the private sector by the government in the name of setting up rubber and other commercial plantations and ecotourism projects, among others. The primary beneficiaries are influential Bengalis with a strong influence on political parties and the local governments. Inevitably, negative impacts have arisen due to the conversion of IP lands to make way for large plantations, forestry projects, extractive industries, development projects, and the like. Aside from the physical encroachment of development, however, there are other structural causes for Bangladesh’s indigenous peoples being alienated from their land. These include the lack of enforcement of the current tenure system and overlap between formal and customary tenure, multiple land claims, inadequate public administration capacity, corruption, uneven distribution of land, and inadequate legalprotection for the poor. Thus, a land governance system is required to prevent land alienation and to secure the ownership and use of land by the indigenous peoples in Bangladesh. The relevant stakeholders, such as CSOs, government actors, bilateral and multilateral agencies, media, and the academe, are called upon to engage in improving this land governance system. Like the other countries represented in this journal, Bangladesh has ratified several international agreements which have a bearing on IP land rights. Recently at the national level, the parliamentary caucus on IP issues has begun formulating an act on Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. Cambodia As the Cambodia paper reports, there is a near universal consensus among domestic and international CSOs, as well as UN agencies, that the laws governing land rights and other customary rights of IPs in Cambodia are very credible and well thought out on paper. The key problem, however, is a near complete lack of implementation of this legal and policy framework in the country. A case in point is the procedure for application by IPs to obtain a communal land title. In line with the Land Law and the 2009 Sub-decree on Procedures of Registration of Land of Indigenous Communities, the procedure has been spelled out. However, the process has been heavily criticized by IP organizations and CSOs because the procedure is too complicated, time consuming and not culturally appropriate for IP communities. Lok Niti 7