A/HRC/4/32 page 9 classifies most of the indigenous territories as State forest, comprising a total of 143 million hectares. Nearly 58 million hectares are already in the hands of timber companies and the remainder is in the process of conversion into commercial plantations, a transformation largely financed by multilateral corporations. Meanwhile, the forests have been taken over by large-scale enterprises, and many indigenous territories have been conceded to various companies without the indigenous people’s consent. 29. A statistical analysis of the social impact of protected forests in the Congo basin and in East Africa concludes that tens of thousands of people, mostly belonging to hunter-gatherer communities, were displaced by the creation of these areas and that the subsistence of as many more has been adversely affected. The documented consequences of these processes include landlessness, unemployment, loss of income, lack of housing, food insecurity, growing morbidity and mortality, and the social breakdown of the indigenous people’s communal life. 30. The drastic decline in forests in Rwanda during the twentieth century to a mere 7 per cent of the total territory, with the resultant loss of biotic resources, has particularly affected the indigenous Twa. Their customary rights to the forest have never been formally recognized and most of them were transformed into precarious occupants or else evicted to give way to commercial eucalyptus plantations that generate timber products, and to the dairy industry on grazing areas on ancient forest lands. Contrary to promises made, the Twa, the poorest group in Rwanda, received no compensation, nor were they employed in the development projects, and they have no access to formal education, housing, or health services. Having lost 30 per cent of their population in the 1994 genocide, the Twa have organized themselves to fight for their rights. 31. Cameroonian forest pygmies are victims of loss of forest resources, which are being developed for economic purposes. They have lost their ancestral lands and their natural resources to further the interests and profits of large forestry enterprises, agribusiness, and conservation organizations and, as a result, see their culture and their survival as a people threatened. 32. Although the 55,000 to 60,000 Amerindian Indians of Guyana have spent decades lobbying successive governments for full legal recognition of their traditional land rights, they still find themselves in a very precarious land situation. Many communities have no deeds of ownership or only insecure title. The untitled areas are considered State land and are subject to mining and timber concessions granted without the prior consent of the Amerindian communities, as in the case of gold and diamond mining in the traditional territories of the indigenous Akawaio, Macusi, Wapichan and Waiwai. In recent years, civil society has organized itself to promote a policy change that would take the rights of indigenous forest peoples into account, achieve a community resource management system and a comprehensive and more democratic and egalitarian approach. 33. Many countries have adopted laws regulating the use of forest resources. While the communities’ ancestral rights and the traditional use of these resources are sometimes recognized, legislation generally tends to favour the large timber corporations and commercial plantations. A comparative analysis shows that forestry laws do little to protect the security and rights of indigenous communities. By and large, the authorities give precedence to other laws