38 Gradually, the countries have been changing their Constitutional norms, to the point that now a number of nations have norms that recognize the cultural diversity of the respective national societies, the existence of indigenous peoples, the right of these peoples to maintain their cultural diversity forever, and the right to legalize their lands. Nicaragua was one of the first countries in Latin America to undertake such a process of recognition. The existence of indigenous peoples as culturally differentiated societies vis-à-vis the rest of society, with specific rights that refer primarily to collective land possession, has been accepted at a Constitutional level. Since the adoption of the 1987 Constitution and the Autonomy Law, which established that indigenous peoples have the right to recognition of their ownership of the land, of their possession of the land, since then the indigenous peoples can be considered full owners of the land, and if they have no written titles, they can demonstrate their possession through different types of evidence. Adoption of these norms should force the State to abstain from adopting decisions regarding the territories occupied by the indigenous. The Autonomy Statute also states that ownership of indigenous lands by indigenous communities is non-attachable, imprescriptible, and inalienable. In actual practice there are some problems because the Agrarian Reform Law, which authorized giving land to indigenous peoples, was adopted one year before the Constitution and the Autonomy Law. And that Agrarian Reform Law did not recognize a special nature of indigenous property, but rather an ownership according to the terms of Nicaragua’s Civil Code, in other words, that it is an attachable, prescriptible, and alienable property, located within trade and granted with the same characteristics as land given to peasant farmers, after studies which are similar to those carried out before giving lands to peasant farmers. Indigenous property is private property which belongs collectively to an indigenous people, community, or group. Transactions disposing of it are restricted, taking into account that it is property assigned to a group which is a people and wishes to perpetuate itself as a people, and demands that the population and territory be maintained. The lands occupied by the indigenous peoples of the Atlantic Coast have been seen as national lands, government lands, lands which the State can freely dispose of, and as such they are being given to peasant farmers who have been settling in those regions. The indigenous communities have also been given title deeds to land, but these titles are of the same nature as those to lands given to peasant-farmers. Certain changes have to be made in the country’s legal system. First, there is a need to clarify or develop some existing Constitutional norms, to develop them in terms of the law. A clear procedure must be established to guarantee the indigenous peoples’ access to full ownership of their lands, through a procedure which they can manage according to their tradition and culture, which recognizes the imprescriptibility and non-attachability of those lands. There is also a need to further the definition of certain aspects pertaining to property and natural resource management, since even though according to the Constitution and in the Autonomy Law they belong to the indigenous peoples, they contradict certain norms established by the State. Such is the case, for example, of certain territories which have been defined as “parks” within the Atlantic Region. There is a need to clarify what rights the indigenous peoples and the State have over those territories. A system must be set up for administration of the lands once they are granted by the State.