This case study focuses on the rights of marginalised indigenous peoples to access and control natural resources (land, water and forest) underpinning their livelihood and traditional occupations. Nepal is a diverse society but the rights of the indigenous populations to their traditionally used resources have been curtailed through various policies, regulations and practices, which further marginalised them. In the past, they had their own system of property ownership, which sometimes differed with the mainstream private property ownership system. In many cases they had been using the resources without any formal property ownership, but through understanding and traditional practices. They derived their cultural meanings and identity from their living in a certain location and using certain natural resources. Even for the management of these natural resources, they had their traditional system to which they had found meaning and thus had given commitments. But now their whole life and livelihood security have been threatened because of restrictions on the use of their traditional resources, evictions from their ancestral lands, and due to lack of proper policies and legislations to ensure their traditional and alternative livelihood opportunities.
This study briefly reviews the policies, legislations or regulations and practices related to land, water and forest, and then identifies the problems and opportunities inherent in them. The impact of the provisions in these policies and regulations on the livelihoods of the highly marginalised indigenous groups is then analysed. As there is also a wide range in the wealth and development status within indigenous peoples (popularly called ethnic groups or Janajatis in Nepal), the case study is limited only with highly marginalised ones, as their livelihoods are threatened by the practices of the state, market and mainstream society.
The process by which the indigenous peoples of Nepal lost to the powerful recent immigrants was the process of nation-building based on uniform state language, religion and identity. This is described by various terms like Nepalisation, Hinduisation or Sanskritisation. The traditional practices in resource management and access to resources of highly marginalised indigenous (ethnic) peoples eroded because of this uniformity imposed by the state. It is only because of hilly nature of the terrain and isolation of various settlements due to lack of transportation and communication that that led to the preservation of the traditional resource management practices of some ethnic groups in some pockets. Introduction of new property rights without recognising the traditional system of keeping land as a community property and using land on rotation as swidden to generate various products for their survival made them totally landless. Centralized administration and nationalisation of forests and other resources associated with it like pasture further marginalised the indigenous peoples. Restrictions on the use of traditionally used resources because of declaration of protected areas in their ancestral lands were extremely harsh for their livelihoods. Their traditional knowledge system has been eroded, which further increased their vulnerability. These peoples seem neither able to cope with modernisation nor are able to derive livelihoods from traditional occupations.