A/HRC/16/63 In some States, feudalistic patterns of land ownership persist, despite legal abolition and the official Land Ceilings Act that aimed to limit land concentration. During the 1990s, evidence suggests that the concentration of land ownership increased, and many more households became landless and dependent on casual agricultural labour (45 per cent of households).20 Scheduled castes and tribes suffer most from hunger and malnutrition in India, making up 25 per cent of the rural population but 42 per cent of the poor.21 This is largely due to discrimination, as many are expected to work as agricultural labourers without being paid, and many are held in debt bondage by their higher-caste employers. D. People living from traditional fishing, hunting and herding activities 13. Around 10 per cent of the world’s hungry subsist through fishing, hunting and herding activities. In many countries, the traditional way of life of these people and their means of livelihood are threatened by competition over productive resources, leading to increasing hunger and malnutrition. 14. There are two types of fish production: fish captured in the wild from the sea or inland waters (capture fisheries) and fish farmed in the sea or inland waters (aquaculture). Both types are driven to industrialization, privatization and export orientation, which end up depriving local people of their traditional rights of access to fishing resources.22 In 2004, for example, the United Nations Environment Programme reported that the European Union paid $230 million in subsidies to its fishing fleets to allow them to take advantage of fishing rights obtained in the Argentine exclusive economic zone.23 In another agreement with Senegal, the European Union managed to obtain fishing rights for endangered or locally used species, thereby threatening the food security of thousands of local fishing communities.23 Fish farming is mostly located in developing countries (84 per cent of global production is in low-income food deficit countries), particularly in China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, and it is frequently promoted on the promise that it will relieve pressure on wild fish stocks, improve food security and provide livelihoods for the poor. Fish farming does not, however, automatically relieve exploitation of marine stocks, given that many farmed fish are, paradoxically, fed with marine fish.24 Indeed, in most cases, fish farming has a negative impact on access to food for traditional fishing communities.25 15. In many parts of the world, people subsisting on hunting activities in forest and hill areas are also increasingly marginalized. Many have lost their access to traditional forest livelihoods and food resources following the creation of forest reserves or because of development projects such as dams, power plants, coalmines and mineral industries. Many remain without access to food or to Government services. In India, for example, where non- 20 21 22 23 24 25 6 See National Sample Survey in Jayati Gosh, Trade Liberalization in Agriculture: An Examination of Impact and Policy Strategies with Special Reference to India, UNDP, Occasional Paper, 2005, p. 14. Gerard J. Gill and others, “Food security and the Millennium Development Goal on hunger in Asia”, Working paper 231 (Overseas Development Institute, London, 2003). Available from www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/1266.pdf. A/59/385, paras. 33-60. United Nations Environment Programme, Fisheries and the Environment. Fisheries Subsidies and Marine Resources Management: Lessons learned from Studies in Argentina and Senegal (Geneva, United Nations, 2002). Rosamond L. Naylor and others, “Effect of Aquaculture on World Fish Supplies”, Nature, vol. 405, 29 June 2000, pp. 1017-1024. Susan C. Stonich and Isabel De La Torre, “Farming shrimp, harvesting hunger: the costs and benefits of the blue revolution”, Backgrounder, vol. 8, no.1 (winter 2002).