“Unoccupied...

“Unoccupied,” in this case, is undefined and can, as well, mean community forests, and the case is the same in the Philippines where indigenous forests are regarded as government property or public land under Presidential Declaration 705.29 In this case, indigenous people are deprived of their traditional duty to develop, protect, and foster forests and this can also lead to land grabbing by the government.

This results in a loss of cultural practices among young people, as they move to urban areas where the character of their traditional agricultural life is eroded by urban life. In Columbia, issues of mining exploitation and hydrocarbon extraction have been discussed as other ways that have displaced indigenous people from their traditional boundaries.

This is regarded as an excessive violation of these people’s rights and privileges.30 The laxity seen from the indigenous people and also from local authorities to come up with strategies and bodies of protecting and conserving forests is somehow not surprising.

This has been a common problem, even after the development of the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) pilot project, which was thought to be of benefit to indigenous people.31 The REDD in developing countries is a climate change (CC) alleviation technique that manages the present crisis of the environment via promoting the forests’ value.

By all means, forests are the home of millions of indigenous peoples who overwhelmingly believe, themselves, in a non-commended status. International and national laws and rules have been put into place to ensure that the indigenous people’s rights are provided for to assure a good relationship between these people and the natural environment.32 2.4. Illegal Logging and Corruption Corruption is a vice that causes a lot of evil both in developing and developed economies.

Illegal logging and corruption is noted to be one of the factors that has caused deforestation. The lack of alternative livelihoods, economic and fuel poverty, together with corruption, has led to the clearance of forests for purposes of economic interests.