E/CN.4/2004/80/Add.3 page 9 18. Against this general background, the visit brought to light some specific human rights issues that are priorities for the indigenous peoples of Chile, some of which are described in detail in the following section. During his visit, the Special Rapporteur was handed a large amount of documentation on this subject. As it would be impossible to refer to all this information given the constraints on the length of this report, some of the most pertinent situations or cases are presented below in boxes. A. Land and territory 19. One of the most pressing problems affecting the native peoples of Chile concerns their ownership of land and territorial rights, particularly in the case of the Mapuche. According to the information given to the Special Rapporteur by various Mapuche leaders and by experts, and his own observations, the following are the main problems: (a) The land owned by the Mapuche is extremely limited and overexploited; (b) The communities’ lands are in remote locations on private property, mostly inside vast forest plantations that are fenced off and protected by private guards (leading to transit problems and harassment and cutting off access to the woods); (c) As a result of the development of the forest plantations, the soil on Mapuche land has lost its sources of water (for drinking and irrigation) and the woodland fauna (that were part of their diet) and undergrowth vegetation (traditionally used for ritual, medicinal and nutritional purposes) are in decline or have disappeared; (d) The use of herbicides (when planting and cultivating new forest species) and pesticides (to maintain new woodlands) applied from crop-spraying planes and other phytosanitary practices affect health and crops in various ways; (e) Lumbering in mature forests is causing pollution in lakes, rivers and streams, substantially reducing their ichthyological (fishing) potential. 20. Pursuant to the Indigenous Peoples Act, which established the Land and Water Fund to expand indigenous lands, about 255,000 hectares of disputed land have been acquired, transferred or regularized since 1993. However, the Special Rapporteur was told by representatives of these communities that this mechanism for recovering land, after initially raising indigenous people’s hopes, soon proved inadequate, in part because of speculative price increases and procedural delays, which left the indigenous population frustrated and disappointed. President Lagos told the Special Rapporteur that many land disputes involving the Mapuche were due precisely to this situation. The Government’s Indigenous Policies and Programmes Coordinating Group explained to the Special Rapporteur that the indigenous land policies followed so far needed to be rethought and a land bank set up to prevent speculation. 21. The land issue is also a priority for the Rapa Nui people, which is having to deal with tensions over land tenure and resource management on Easter Island. Although the Indigenous Peoples Act guarantees the protection of Rap Nui land, Decree Law No. 2885 (1979) allows all