A/62/286 general situation of indigenous rights and current trends, with particular emphasis on the situation of indigenous women and children. Issues relating to the protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples in Asia were also discussed and, in that context, the Special Rapporteur submitted a paper on the human rights situation of indigenous peoples in that region (E/C.19/2007/CRP.11). As on other occasions, he has stayed in contact with Government delegations, indigenous organizations and international agencies, which has allowed him to continue gathering information on developments affecting the human rights situation of indigenous peoples in specific countries and regions and to identify priority areas of action for the future. He takes the view that coordination between the Permanent Forum and the Special Rapporteur regarding the promotion and protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples is of the utmost importance. IV. The situation of the rights of indigenous peoples in Asia 44. During the period under review the Special Rapporteur collected information from various sources on the situation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples in Asia; some of the activities described above were helpful in that regard. The situation of indigenous peoples, which represent tens of millions of individuals and are present in virtually all the countries of the region, has long been neglected and has only recently begun to be considered at the international level. One reason for the lack of a comprehensive analysis of the human rights problems faced by these peoples is the history of differences between Asian States in terms of how their laws and public policies refer to these peoples and define their legal status. Thus, while States such as Cambodia, Nepal and the Philippines explicitly use the term “indigenous”, which is now used in international discourse on the subject, other countries have traditionally used different expressions, such as “tribal peoples” and “hill tribes”, as well as similar expressions in local languages, such as Adivasis or Orang Asli, which refer to the idea of aboriginality. In other countries the legal and constitutional treatment of these peoples is not noticeably different from that of other minority groups; rather, they are subsumed under the category of “ethnic minorities” or “national minorities”. 45. Irrespective of these variations, what these peoples have in common with indigenous peoples in other parts of the world is a set of cultural, social and economic characteristics that make them particularly vulnerable to marginalization and discrimination by majority sectors of the population in the countries they inhabit, exclude them from decision-making processes at all levels in their own countries and make them victims of systematic human rights violations. 46. The indigenous peoples of Asia are experiencing serious human rights violations as a result of the loss of their ancestral lands and territories. This process has gained momentum in recent decades and, in some cases, puts these peoples at risk of disappearing completely as peoples. The factors driving this process include the new push for large-scale plantation agriculture, especially in Indonesia, Malaysia and other South-East Asian countries, and the dramatic pace of deforestation as a result of State concessions and illegal logging. Peoples whose cultures and subsistence are inextricably linked to forests are particularly vulnerable to these processes, and in most countries they lack any means of defending their rights against State claims of ownership of forest areas. 07-48664 11