A/HRC/15/37/Add.2 and socio-political institutions, among others”.9 As already noted, the Remote Area Development Programme, an important initiative in this regard, has the potential to achieve positive results if it is adapted to embrace and conform to the cultural patterns of the groups it is intended to benefit. That programme, and other initiatives to address the disadvantages faced by particular groups, should extend to addressing a major cause of that disadvantage, which is associated with the historical prejudice and subjugation acknowledged by the Government: the historical dispossession of land. 58. By many accounts, the Basarwa have been especially affected over time by the expansion of majority tribes and non-indigenous farmers into the areas traditionally used and occupied by them, particularly in western Botswana. Dispossession in favour of white settlers and dominant tribes engaging in agro-pastoralism from colonial times continued, according to numerous sources, with the implementation of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy of 1975, as large tracts of land were allocated to cattle ranchers at the expense of the Basarwa. Under that policy, the Government re-zoned approximately 12 per cent of the tribal land identified in the Tribal Territories Act and allocated it to individual cattle ranchers, who received the exclusive lease rights to the grazing land. 59. Under the final version of the policy, no alternative lands were set aside for the people who had been living on the land. The World Bank has estimated that 28,000 people living in poor, rural areas of Botswana were displaced from the ranching areas created by the Tribal Grazing Land Policy. A settlement scheme was eventually established to move the Basarwa of the Ghanzi farms, who numbered over 4,000, to four settlements, including East and West Hanahai. Others continued to live and work as field hands or squatters at the cattle posts. Without recognized land rights, those dispossessed, such as the Basarwa people, were not compensated for the land taken. 60. While the Tribal Grazing Land Policy was aimed at better managing the country’s land resources and preventing land degradation resulting from the overgrazing of tribal lands, it failed to consider the hunter-gatherer subsistence way of life practised by those displaced. Thus, a residual effect of the policy was the loss of adequate access to the area’s natural resources needed for survival. The cattle farming resulted in the reduction of plant food in the area; the interference with game migration routes, reducing the number of large game available for hunting; and the depletion of water resources. 61. These historical injustices have put minority indigenous peoples, such as the Basarwa, at a significant disadvantage vis-à-vis other tribes. While the Remote Area Development Programme seems to be aimed at addressing these disadvantages, the initiative in itself has had some profound negative impacts on the rights of indigenous peoples to their traditional lands in Botswana, given the Government’s strategy of relocating communities from remote areas, as discussed earlier (paras. 31–33 above). In this regard, the Special Rapporteur notes the Government’s initiative to now require the land boards to prioritize the lease applications of remote area settlers, an initiative that could potentially provide a measure of redress for the historical dispossession of land. 62. Highlighting international concern about the effects of historical dispossession of traditional lands, territories and resources of indigenous peoples, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People calls on States to recognize and protect the land rights of indigenous peoples on the basis of their customary or traditional tenure (art. 26). The Declaration further affirms that indigenous peoples have the right to redress, by means that can include restitution or, when that is not possible, just, fair and equitable compensation, for the lands, territories and resources unjustly taken from them (art. 28). 9 GE.10-13968 Ibid., para. 2.3.1. 15