25 spaces of the territory of the hemisphere to be wastelands, national lands, and they took upon themselves the right to make their will on those lands, without taking into account the original rights, the historical rights, and the physical presence of indigenous peoples organized in different ways on those lands from the times of their ancestors. Problems arise when the States decide to issue deed titles to those lands or to grant concessions or to allow the clearing of those lands, to authorize the use of those lands for other purposes determined by various economic interests. That is when many indigenous peoples realize that juridically speaking they are not the authentic owners of the territories which they have occupied traditionally. In recent decades, indigenous peoples have begun to organize, as they have realized that they have to do something to juridically protect and safeguard these lands. What is generically called indigenous customary law is not a structured body of law, much less a codified one; it is a series of real practices which are carried out in different ways in various communities, to solve a number of problems of administrating justice, addressing conflicts, keeping internal order, regulating interpersonal complaints, managing relations with the outside world, etc. Under customary law, the land is seen as a spiritual place, insofar as it is linked to human beings, since it has sacred places, the forest, etc. This linkage of humans with the territory is not necessarily written down, it is something lived on a daily basis. As regards ancestral occupation of the land, continuity is established in terms of the historical continuity of a group which for centuries has maintained an identity from which, precisely, stems its current situation in the given country. The fact is that due to historical changes, economic depressions, violence, civil wars, and pressures by the economically dominant system, which for centuries has applied pressure on the indigenous peoples and restricted them to those areas which the first invaders, the settlers and then the large corporations, have not been interested in, indigenous groups have been forced to seek new habitats, so as to maintain that historical continuity without the intervention of alien forces, so as to maintain their freedom and their right to live according to their own understanding of life. There are many examples of communities which have moved from one place to another in relatively recent historical times. All this is part of the indigenous worldview, which currently is being reflected in substantive law, and an international indigenous law is being constructed. This process includes work by the United Nations, in the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; by the Organization of American States, in the Project on Indigenous Rights; by the International Labor Organization, in Covenant 169. Up to now, recognition of indigenous rights has been merely formal, as it has not been possible to attain progress in the development of regulations on those rights. The ILO Covenant reflects them in general terms and poses the challenge of translating those norms into effective national regulations. The report prepared by professor Theodore Macdonald fulfills all the requirements of a methodologically responsible ethnographic research study, based on multiple sources and on concepts from various disciplines: anthropology, history, geography, economics, etc. It is clear from reading the study that the researcher has traveled extensively throughout those areas, interviewed many people, obtained direct information, which is what anthropologists generally do, and he has also resorted to the critical analysis of a large amount of documents that are not always easy to obtain, so as to substantiate his findings.