A/HRC/12/34/Add.3 page 19 The Government of Nepal has taken important steps to provide for consultation with indigenous peoples in the development of specific policies, in particular by providing high levels of indigenous representation in NFDIN and in the task force assembled to implement Convention 169. 68. However, still lacking are consultation mechanisms in relation to the management or extraction of natural resources in the traditional territories of the Adivasi Janajati, including national parks, and other development projects, such as dams. Insofar as their means of subsistence, cultures, or other such interests are implicated in the decisions, the Adivasi Janajati must be consulted in good faith, with the objective of achieving their free and informed prior consent to the aspects of the management schemes or projects that affect them directly.5 The consultations should include ample consideration of the rights or interests at stake, any needed mitigation measures, and benefit sharing. In addition, as pointed out by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Saramaka v. Suriname (2008), the consent of the affected communities should be required “when large-scale development or investment projects could affect the integrity of” their lands and resources. Nepal’s new political-administrative order should include consultation procedures along these lines, with appropriate amendments to the Hydropower Act, the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, natural resources legislation and other relevant legislation, as well as to all relevant administrative practices. 3. Territories, lands and resources 69. An important consideration in all of the above is the territorial aspect of indigenous peoples’ self-determination. Aptly described by Convention 169, the concept of territory covers “the total environment of the areas which the [indigenous] peoples concerned occupy or otherwise use”.6 An indigenous territory should be understood to include not just areas of contemporary physical use, but also ancestral or traditional use that continues to have significance in the contemporary life of the community, including within cultural and religious domains. Indigenous peoples’ autonomy over particular subjects of local or internal concern, along with their participation in wider decision-making, should, together, extend to matters throughout their respective territories in ways commensurate with the exercise of their rights to political participation, cultural integrity, and social and economic development. 70. This does not mean necessarily converting each indigenous group’s territory into a state or district within a federal Nepal. That would not appear to be feasible, given the country’s complex demography and the geographically overlapping or dispersed land use and occupancy patterns of most of the country’s many Adivasi Janajati communities and other ethnic groups. But it can entail developing carefully crafted arrangements to allow indigenous peoples both to exercise autonomy within specific domains and have effective participation in State governance at all levels, including through targeted consultations, with the spatial characteristics of indigenous interests in mind. 5 United Nations Declaration, art. 19; Convention 169, arts. 6 (1), 15 (2). 6 Convention 169, art. 13 (2).