A/HRC/41/54 small-scale mining operations. 89 A submission from South Africa commended certain affirmative action measures that had been taken to empower artisanal miners who were historically and racially excluded from formal mining protections. The submission nonetheless highlighted that registration for small-scale farming permits was prohibitively expensive for artisanal miners in South Africa, de facto confining these miners to illegality. This results in the maintenance of an apartheid-era status quo in which racial and ethnic groups at the bottom of the power hierarchy remain excluded. 55. For indigenous and Afrodescendent communities and other ethnic and racial communities, especially those in rural territories, colonial legacies and traditional forms of relating to land expose such groups to insecurity of land tenure and thereby exacerbate their exposure to human rights violations. For example, in 2012, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples found that, in addition to millions of acres of lands lost, often in violation of treaties, a history of inadequately controlled extractive and other activities within or near remaining indigenous lands, including nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining in the western United States, resulted in widespread environmental harm, and caused serious and continued health problems among Native Americans (A/HRC/21/47/Add.1, para. 41). Another Special Rapporteur provides the example of Brazil, where indigenous peoples, Quilombos and Cigano face enduring discrimination. She noted that, without clear, formal, title to land, thousands of Quilombo communities continued to struggle for economic, social and political viability. The National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform had reported that the increasing economic importance of land in Brazil, including for agribusiness, biofuel production and extractive industries, had put additional pressure on the Quilombo demarcation process (A/HRC/31/56/Add.1, para. 63). 56. The vulnerability of rural ethnic, racial and indigenous communities in the extractivism economy is greatly exacerbated by land grabs. 90 Land grabs usually entail a change in land use and ownership from local food production to other corporate and industrial purposes, so land grabs can “exclude the local population from the access to potentially highly productive agricultural land that, even without major investments, could produce enough food to sustain about 190–235 ... million people”.91 Sub-Saharan Africa is the most targeted region for land grabs, with more than 10 million hectares of land deals having been concluded since 2000, despite serious concerns about decreasing arable land.92 In Latin America, land is becoming increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, exacerbating inequality in resource extraction and hindering the growth of local economies. While some land is directly purchased, it is not uncommon for peoples to be displaced from their homelands involuntarily. For example, in Paraguay, certain communities that have been surrounded by soybean plantations have been forced off their land due to the harsh chemicals used in processing the beans. In other cases, displacement is the result of violence. For example, people in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras have been forced to leave their land after facing threats, coercion and violent evictions to make space for soybean, oil palm and sugar cane plantations.93 57. Extractive projects involve dangerous working conditions that frequently threaten and violate workers’ rights to life, safety, health and fair working conditions. 94 Extractive industries frequently abuse workers by demanding long hours, paying unfair wages, subjecting individuals to dangerous working conditions and even employing child 89 90 91 92 93 94 16 www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/reducing-mercury-pollution-artisanal-and-small-scale-goldmining; and www.eda.admin.ch/dam/deza/en/documents/publikationen/Diverses/216063-artisanalgold-mining_EN.pdf, p. 7. www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/unpfii/IDWIP2015/MessageSR.pdf. Ted Schrecker, Anne-Eamuelle Birn and Mariajosé Aguilera, “How extractive industries affect health: political economy underpinnings and pathways”, Health and Place, vol. 52, p. 141. Ibid. www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-land-power-inequality-latin-america301116-en.pdf, p. 37. See, e.g., https://doi.org/10.17226/18250.