There are numbers of key actors and stakeholders that are directly involved in promoting/impeding IPs land rights in Nepal. They include: government, major political parties, local government, donor agencies and international institutions, the private sector, civil society organizations, NGOs, IP activists and IP-based organizations, and the media. There are a number of international laws, treaties, and conventions that the government of Nepal has ratified which proffer the ground of enhanced opportunities in advancing the IPs’ customary rights in Nepal. Besides this, national laws, acts, policies, programs, structures and mechanisms have also provided opportunities in enhancing IP customary rights.   Legal Framework of IPs’ Land and Resource Rights All indigenous peoples lost ownership and control over their ancestral lands by the 1960s because of the State‘s predatory land policies, such as Birta (the rulers gave ownership of land to individual Bahuns) and Jagir (land given in lieu of salary) and of the abolition of Kipat (communal/ collective land ownership land tenure system) in Nepal (Regmi, 1976). The land grant and assignment policy followed by the Gorkhali rulers and their descendants, Ranacracy and Panchayatcracy, favored particular classes and communities in the society to the exclusion of others. They tended to be concentrated for the most part among Brahmans, Chhetris and Thakuris, particularly from the western hill areas, who sustained the political authority of the new rulers. Gurungs, Magars, Tamangs, and Newars generally did not receive such favors (Regmi, 1971). The state made a feudal ruling class of landowners based on private property by confiscating the communal lands and forests of indigenous communities, whether they were in hill areas or Terai. In 1964, a comprehensive series of land reform measures was announced by the government, with the intention of introducing programs such as land ceilings; confiscation of lands over and exceeding the land ceilings as well as uncultivated forest lands; tenancy rights; and the scrutiny of loans and credits in all areas of the Kingdom. The Land Reform Act of 1964 became successful in converting the last Kipat tenures remaining with Limbus of eastern Nepal into Raikar tenure. At the end of 1968, the central government introduced an amendment to the Lands Act of 1964 which allowed for the sale of Kipat land and the assessment of these lands at the rates of tax equivalent to those prevalent on raikar. The Land Reform came and Kipat land became Raikar, as it seems that the rulers of Nepal were determined to abolish the Kipat system once and for all. Indigenous Peoples began to lose their ancestral lands with the territorial unification of Nepal in 1769 through land tenure systems such as Birta and Jagir, and because of nationalization of the forests and the creation of national parks, wildlife reserves, protected land and community forest programs. Currently, personal landholding by indigenous peoples is lower than that of the dominant caste groups. In Nepal all forests are national forests unless grown and registered as private forests. National forests include government-managed, community-managed, leasehold and religious forests. All forests inside PAs and  those which Lok Niti 73