A/HRC/4/32 page 8 Indigenous Peoples Policy - and recognition of the devastating impact the creation of the national parks has had on the Batwa - resources are now available to enable families of this indigenous group to purchase smallholdings. 23. At recent world congresses on parks and conservation (held, respectively, in Durban, South Africa, in 2003 and Bangkok in 2004), attention was drawn to the need for new paradigms for protected areas in order to ensure that violated indigenous rights are restored and are respected in future. The defence of human rights must be a priority in environmental campaigns, which calls for the establishment of a database. 24. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States should endeavour to close the implementation gap between legally recognized rights, sometimes reinforced by the courts, and the practical exercise of those rights, especially regarding the protection of the lands and natural resources of the indigenous peoples, in accordance with the spirit of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved by the Human Rights Council. C. Forest peoples 25. The reduction of the indigenous people’s territorial base is only a small part of a broader phenomenon: the progressive and accelerated loss of control over their natural resources, in which the forest resources situation is particularly dire. In recent years the forests of the indigenous people have been systematically affected by the activities of large forestry corporations and of legal and illegal logging, leading to the progressive destruction of their traditional means of subsistence. This process not only leads to the deforestation and desertification of large tracts of the planet, but also accelerates the gradual destruction of the indigenous people’s lifestyle and culture. This process affects the living conditions of a multitude of indigenous communities in the equatorial forests of Central Africa, the Amazon basin, the boreal forests of Siberia and America, the Andean range and South-East Asia, as well as the Pacific islands. The Special Rapporteur has visited many of these areas and has personally witnessed the damage in question. 26. Some 60 million indigenous people in the world depend almost entirely on the forests for their survival. Hiding behind forest legislation, the authorities tend to sacrifice the rights of local communities to the interests of commercial firms, and resources are often utilized for illegal activities protected by corrupt officials and entrepreneurs. In many countries, eviction of indigenous people from their traditional forests as a result of such activities is one of the essential causes of their impoverishment. 27. In many South-East Asian countries, the way forest dwellers live is considered primitive and has sometimes been criminalized to be replaced by “permanent” commercial agriculture. The expansion of industrial plantations for palm oil, rubber and trees for wood pulp has caused innumerable disputes in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, when local communities’ lands are expropriated and passed on to companies without the communities’ consent. The disputes often intensify and result in human rights violations. 28. Indonesia possesses 10 per cent of the world’s forest resources, which provide a livelihood for approximately 30 million indigenous people. The Indonesian Government