E/CN.4/2004/80/Add.3 page 12 26. The issue of the right to land becomes more complicated when it concerns access by indigenous people to underground resources and other resources such as water and maritime resources, which are vital to their subsistence economy and traditional cultural identity. Various sectoral laws, such as the 1981 Water Code, despite a number of reforms made to them, facilitate and protect the registration of private property rights over resources that have traditionally belonged to indigenous communities. In the arid northern region, for example, access to water is vital to the lives of the Aymara, Atacameño and Quechua rural communities, but is often denied to them because the resources have been appropriated by mining companies. Along the coast of Araucanía, many Lafkenche families have had what used to be free access to their traditional fisheries and coastal resources restricted by the registration of vast stretches of coastline in the name of huincas, or non-indigenous persons, in accordance with the provisions of the Fisheries Act and to the detriment of the Mapuche communities. During his visit to the north of the country, the Special Rapporteur had meetings with representatives of the Aymara, Quechua and Atacameño peoples in Iquique and San Pedro de Atacama, who brought up the following issues: (a) They complain that most of the water resources already have owners and that all the rights to underground water are being allocated to the mining company, not to the communities trying to pursue their traditional economic activities; (b) The proliferation of sectoral regulations and their position in the legislative hierarchy are affecting the implementation of the Indigenous Peoples Act. They complain that the Mining Code and the Water Code are given precedence over the Act; (c) They complain that applications by indigenous communities for water rights are dealt with in a discriminatory fashion as compared with those by mining companies and that the existing mechanisms for environmental impact assessments are inadequate; (d) The communities condemn the failure to provide information and to involve them when regulations are adopted or actions taken that concern their territory and the natural resources traditionally considered to belong to them. 27. Under Chilean legislation, the regulations governing water, the subsoil and maritime and lake resources are completely independent of those governing land ownership and the productive use to which they may be put: the rights to “ownership” and “use” may be granted freely by the State to anyone who applies for them. Under this system, the concessions for most of the springs and streams in indigenous areas have been granted to third parties, including the owners of forest plantations. Likewise, many concessions have apparently been granted for mining exploration and production on indigenous land. This situation also affects communities living on the Pacific coast or beside lakes, who are facing the loss of their traditional right to extract resources from the sea.