A/HRC/25/56/Add.1 A. Land rights 15. Land issues were frequently cited as being a core concern of minority and indigenous peoples that have extremely strong and long-standing connections to land and territory, which they occupy and govern according to their customary practices, culture and traditions. Consequently, issues relating to access to and the use, occupation or ownership of land and displacement from lands featured prominently in consultations with the Independent Expert. The right to land is fundamental to the preservation of the identity, lifestyles, livelihoods and well-being of many minority and indigenous communities and to the enjoyment of a wide range of other human rights. 16. Under the primary land law,7 the State is the guardian of all lands and has the right to intervene in land use on issues of national economic or defence policy. Lands that are not privately registered are classified as national lands controlled by the State.8 Communities may privately register land and therefore claim ownership thereof only if they develop it by building houses or farms. The Government retains the right to stop communities from using unoccupied or unexploited national land, and may either use the land itself or grant it to another party for use or temporary concession. Where land is granted to a private company, plantation or a logging concession, for example, an environmental impact study must be conducted and a clearly established community consultation process be respected with those who use the land concerned. Human rights groups claim that this requirement is rarely fully respected in practice. 17. Some non-governmental organizations and media reports refer to an unprecedented degree of land grabbing that affects thousands of people displaced to make way for largescale agribusiness and other projects.9 Reportedly, the current legal and administrative regulations relating to land strongly disadvantage some communities and are frequently abused; for instance, those who use the land only for the purposes of hunter-gathering or grazing do not officially own the lands and their rights are consequently limited under the law. Some Mbororo communities have historically used certain routes for livestock grazing and therefore require essential seasonal access to them and nearby water sources. In 2010, the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry began consultations with civil society to revise the 1974 land tenure ordinance to address some community concerns. B. Disaggregated data 18. Cameroon does not collect data disaggregated by ethnicity, religion or language; for this reason, few accurate and up-to-date data are available to provide a detailed picture of the country’s ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity. The Independent Expert noted a general lack of statistical clarity even with regard to the actual number of ethnic groups and the number and status of national languages. Such data would reveal essential information on the population and socioeconomic situation of different groups within the country, and important trends in, for example, population numbers, religious affiliation and language usage. Such data could also identify problems facing particular groups by, for example, allowing poverty levels to be mapped and progress in poverty reduction to be monitored. 7 8 9 Ordinance No. 74-1 of 6 July 1974. See John Nelson and Tom Lomax, Forest Peoples Programme, July 2013 (available from www.forestpeoples.org/sites/fpp/files/publication/2013/07/fpp-fpic-herakles-final-july-18-web.pdf). See www.iwgia.org/images/stories/sections/regions/africa/documents/2013/Cameroon.pdf. 7