the House of Representatives now preparing the draft of the Act on the Recognition and Protection of IPs Rights. But despite these developments, the indigenous peoples of Indonesia are still struggling to secure full legal recognition. Participatory mapping has revealed alarming overlaps among customary land, forest areas and areas granted permits (concessions, mining, palm oil, and industrial tree forest). Such competing claims make it extremely difficult to defend and ensure IPs’ rights over managed areas that have been taken over by the government through permits. The Asian economic crisis of 1997/1998 saw the large-scale take-over of land – including customary land – for commercial interests such as the establishment of extensive palm oil plantations. The government facilitated this process by allowing the leasing of state lands to foreign corporations. Unfortunately for the indigenous peoples, part of the land that was allocated to palm oil plantation expansion was on their land. Mining is another sector that has trampled on indigenous peoples’ land rights. Since 2000, mining activities have increased rapidly, with Indonesia becoming the world’s largest producer and exporter of coal by 2007 – unfortunately at the expense of increasing conflict over land. Recent positive steps towards upholding IPs’ land rights have been: a) the decision of the Constitutional Court to rephrase a portion of the Forestry Act No. 41/1999 – providing some room for Indonesia’s indigenous peoples to obtain legal recognition; b) the issuance of the One Map Policy to come up with integrated spatial data from different stakeholders including indigenous communities; and c) the Geospatial Information Act that allows for a customary area participatory 10 map to be taken as a thematic map and thus become a reference in managing Indonesian forests. Another approach to getting indigenous peoples’ areas recognized at the national level is going through the Indigenous People and Community Conserved Territory and Areas (ICCAs) to obtain support from the ICCA Consortium, an international association dedicated to promoting the appropriate recognition and support to ICCAs. Also at the national level, the Indonesian House of Representatives is preparing the draft Act on Recognition and Protection of IP Rights; while at the regional level, Regional Regulations on the Recognition and Protection of IPs Rights have begun to be issued. Nepal The indigenous peoples in Nepal can be divided into two distinct regional groups: Hill IPs and Terai IPs. The government of Nepal does not, however, officially recognize indigenous territories or community ownership of land.   The Constitution of 1990 and the current Interim Constitution of Nepal of 2007 accept caste, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversities, but fall short of giving due rights to indigenous peoples. As a consequence, there has been no legislation specific to indigenous peoples. All laws, including those on land and natural resources, have deprived such groups of ownership, control and use of their traditionally owned, controlled and used ancestral lands. In 2002, the first law on indigenous peoples was passed. However, it mainly served to establish the Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities. Meanwhile, nearly all of Nepal’s forests and Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC)