E/CN.4/2003/90 page 19 management, irrigation and flood-control components. Whereas the power to be generated will range between 30 and 54 gigawatt-hours monthly, the irrigation component of the project is aimed at extending, improving and integrating various existing irrigation works, so as to service more than 70,000 hectares of riceland. The area to be serviced by the flood-control component is estimated at about 125,000 hectares. 55. The area upstream of the dam is occupied by Ibaloy, Kankaney and Kalanguya indigenous peoples. About 120 households of eight indigenous villages have been dispersed by the local effects of the rising waters of the dam. Furthermore, nearly 5,000 indigenous households (about 26,000 individuals) are going to be affected by the sedimentation and flooding to be expected from the reservoir’s eventual siltation, and more than 3,000 households will be affected by watershed management. A high rate of sedimentation takes place because of continued dumping of muck waste and impoundment of tailings from several large mining operations; this threatens to seriously alter the traditional activities of numerous indigenous communities in the area. The watershed management plan, intended to mitigate the project’s impact, involves curtailing some of the traditional activities of the indigenous communities, such as small-scale ore mining (which does little to affect the environment), banning the harvesting of timber products that are used for home construction and kitchen-fuel purposes, and regulating subsistence swidden agriculture which is usually considered as sound agroforestry management. Instead, large commerce-oriented agricultural production is being promoted as well as livestock raising for the market, which imply widespread clearing of vegetation and induced massive soil erosion in both the upper and parts of the lower river basin. 56. The project has several human rights implications: firstly, environmental disruption; secondly, the displacement of population, some of which appears to have been undertaken forcibly, but mostly through insistence on the implementation of the project in the face of community resistance and persuasion. Gradually, the people’s resistance to the project has grown silent. Most importantly, indigenous peoples’ land rights have been disregarded. Proprietary ancestral rights of indigenous families have not been given due recognition, but as project implementation progressed some families about to be displaced accepted some form of compensation, which was then cited as indication of consent. In fact, none of the affected communities participated in the planning of the project itself, and none freely gave their consent to its implementation. But many individuals participated in the consultations concerning impact-mitigation measures, and all of them are now bound by the enforcement of those measures, which imply drastic changes in livelihood engagements. 57. Whether deliberately or without meaning to, the watershed managers are steering the households away from the peasant livelihood mix traditional to their indigenous communities, towards the monocultures that tend to define the production of vegetables, flowers, broom grass, and livestock for the market. Starting with their lending of capital for the new livelihood ventures, the watershed managers are introducing the households to new economic relations that may or may not be good for the communities. Whatever the final results, the debate stirred by the dam projects has already disrupted local social relations considerably. 58. This has occurred because local mechanisms for the protection of indigenous rights have not been effective. The indigenous communities of the municipality of Itogon tried to avail themselves of the mechanism provided by the Philippines’ Local Government Code to withdraw