A/HRC/4/32 page 7 utilized by powerful economic consortia, with neither their prior consent nor their participation, and without the communities securing any of the benefit of that activity. This is currently one of the most controversial issues involving indigenous people, the State, and private enterprises, and often also the international financial institutions. 18. In the countries of South-East Asia, disputes between the State and the indigenous highland inhabitants over land ownership and control of natural resources persist and usually have to do with infrastructure works, especially dams, and the creation of new forest reserves. In these countries, massive evictions of indigenous peoples have occurred or are being envisaged, including in the area around the Chinese dams on the Upper Mekong and its tributaries, the Black River project in Viet Nam, the Nam Theun in Laos, and Thai plans for major infrastructure works in the Chiang Mai region, which threaten to disturb the ecological balance and affect the right of the indigenous communities concerned to land, cultural integrity, food and health 19. The construction of 13 dams on the River Nu in China will entail the displacement of an estimated 50,000 members of indigenous communities (Nu, Lissu, Tibetans, Yi and Pumi) and other ethnic minorities. Part of this area, Three Parallel Rivers, has been declared a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In 2006 the World Heritage Committee expressed concern over the possible impact of the dam construction on the affected communities. These communities claim that they have not been consulted about these projects as other indigenous border communities in the Myanmar-Thailand frontier area have been. 20. The Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement (E/CN.4/2006/41, annex), proposed in 2006 by Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, for its possible adoption by the Human Rights Council, defines forced evictions as violations of human rights, which can only be carried out under exceptional circumstances and in full accordance with international human rights law. The guidelines propose a series of guarantees relating to protection of the rights of indigenous people, including a set of preventive strategies and procedural requirements for both eviction and relocation. 21. In the Russian Federation, a new Land Code adopted in 2001 permits private land appropriation, but access to ownership is so mired in red tape as to exclude most indigenous communities from the process. The same is true of the country’s Water and Forestry Codes. Central Siberia is currently a vast petroleum, gas, coal and heavy-metal reserve. Russian and foreign companies are vying for access to subsoil resources in this region and for the right to build roads and pipelines for transporting fuel and timber to foreign markets. These are the problems facing the indigenous peoples of, for instance, the Turukhansk, Taimyr and Evenk districts in Krasnoyarsk Territory. 22. The establishment of protected areas such as national parks and nature reserves often involves eviction of indigenous people from large tracts of indigenous lands, the collapse of traditional forms of land tenure, and their impoverishment, which has led to many social conflicts. The creation of national parks in Uganda with World Bank support in the early 1990s caused problems for the indigenous Batwa, who no longer have access to their forest resources and have been reduced to the status of landless labourers. As a result of the new World Bank