A/HRC/12/34/Add.2 page 21 V. CONCLUSIONS 70. The Government of Brazil has manifested a commitment to advance the rights of indigenous peoples in light of relevant international standards, having ratified ILO Convention 169 and supported adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Brazil has important constitutional and other legal protections for indigenous peoples, and its Government has developed a number of significant programmes in areas of indigenous land rights, development, health and education. 71. Nonetheless, further efforts are needed to ensure that indigenous peoples are able to fully exercise their right to self-determination within the framework of a Brazilian State that is respectful of diversity, which means exercising control over their lives, communities and lands, and participating in all decisions affecting them, in accordance with their own cultural patterns and authority structures. Sustaining such efforts is complicated by entrenched paternalism toward indigenous peoples, by an apparent lack of understanding among much of the public and the news media of indigenous issues, and by opposing political forces. 72. Within the framework of constitutional protection of indigenous land, Brazil has developed an exemplary model for securing indigenous land rights from which other countries have much to learn. Under this model, the Government has demarcated and registered substantial areas of land, while many other areas of traditionally occupied indigenous land remain to be demarcated and registered amid a number of challenging factors. 73. A problem often to be confronted in the process of recognizing and securing indigenous land is non-indigenous occupation of the land. This problem is especially pervasive in areas outside of the Amazon region where there is heavy non-indigenous settlement, including in the agribusiness belt in south-western Brazil. Tensions between indigenous peoples and non-indigenous occupants have been especially acute in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, where indigenous peoples suffer from a severe lack of access to their traditional lands, extreme poverty and related social ills, giving rise to a pattern of violence that is marked by numerous murders of indigenous individuals as well as by criminal prosecution of indigenous individuals for acts of protest. 74. Even when indigenous lands are already demarcated and registered, indigenous peoples’ rights over lands and natural resources are often threatened by non-indigenous occupation and invasion. Illegal occupation and invasion of indigenous lands, for natural resource extraction or other activities, causes a myriad of adverse consequences for the indigenous communities concerned, including in the areas of health and physical security, with violent confrontation in many cases a feature of the non-indigenous presence. 75. There is an apparent lack of full harmonization of the Government’s priorities for economic development with the existing laws, policies and Government commitments