A/77/514 urbanization in South America has replaced indigenous worship sites with city infrastructure. A mining company destroyed ancient rock structures in Juukan Gorge, Australia, with profound spiritual significance to traditional owners.59 Obstacles to indigenous people’s access and use of their lands may prevent them from enjoying spiritual practices and transmitting knowledge to future generations while engendering spiritual and psychological distress by creating a sense of alienation.60 28. Yet States and non-State actors have forcibly evicted or denied indigenous peoples access to their land and inflicted environmental degradation and destruction in their territories (including for construction, extractive industries, agro-industrial farming, logging, cash crop plantations, hazardous waste dumping, and tourism). Interlocutors submit that Russian Statesponsored logging companies have proposed a 1,000-kilometer paved road through the Udege peoples' sacred forest.61 Extractive companies in the Philippines, India, and Cambodia have forcibly evicted indigenous peoples from their lands, in some cases supported by national police/military. 62 UN experts recently scrutinized Tanzania's escalating violence in forcibly evicting Maasai peoples for development and conservation reserves, deploying live ammunition, and tear gas.63 Operators of the Kathmandu Valley Road Expansion Project reportedly forcibly evicted Newars en masse and risked the destruction of countless cultural heritage sites considered "integral [to their] life and identity."64 29. The Special Rapporteur received reports from every region that States have instrumentalized their legal and policy frameworks to frustrate indigenous peoples’ access or use of indigenous land, often treating their rights as secondary considerations to political and economic objectives.65 In 2019, Pakistan's Supreme Court approved the transfer of Bahria Town Karachi to a private developer, with experts estimating that approximately 10% of indigenous communities were forcibly removed after "illegally occupying" 40,000 acres of traditional land.66 State ambivalence or complicity is also a concern. The Brazilian Government's lack of regulation on agricultural fertilizers has allegedly caused water pollution on indigenous territory, threatening spiritually significant waters.67 Without adequate legal protection in Canada, recent years have reportedly witnessed increasing vandalism and desecration of sacred First Nations sites containing indigenous pictographs and petroforms.68 30. Many indigenous peoples seek land tenure as the "only way" to protect their territories against these serious challenges, even if the anthropocentric Lockean concept of land ownership is contrary to their worldview. For Mapuche people in Chile, "I belong to the earth; the earth doesn't belong to me."69 Yet despite indigenous peoples holding and using over a one-quarter of the world's land, they enjoy secure tenure for only 10%. The Special Rapporteur recalls that secure tenure rights are a critical indicator for Sustainable Development Goal ("SDGs") No. 1 of ending all forms of poverty everywhere.70 31. Arbitrary designation of State borders encompassing indigenous lands may also undermine their freedom of religion or belief where they cannot cross over, including to access a sacred site or engage tribal members in traditional ceremonies. Although the USA's "Enhanced Tribal Identification" cards may facilitate access across the Mexico border, rights- 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 https://doi.org/10.1017/bhj.2021.18. Consultation-Kenya. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/illegal-logging-threatens-survival-russias-indigenous-udege. AL PHL 1/2019; KHM 1/2015;UA IND 8/2017. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/06/tanzania-un-experts-warn-escalating-violenceamidst-plans-forcibly-evict. UA NPL 3/2017. E.g. A/HRC/18/35,(paras.30-55); A/77/183,(para.40). https://thediplomat.com/2021/07/the-battle-over-bahria-town-karachi/. OL BRA 4/2022. https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/indigenous-pictographs-canada-vandalized https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-22/chile-hydroelectric-plant-indigenous-sites-trufulriver/101354004. A/75/385,(para.48). 9