Regaining Paradise Lost: Indigenous Land Rights and Tourism

Book excerpt: Mary Kristerie A. Baleva’s Regaining Paradise Lost: Indigenous Land Rights and Tourism uses the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as its overarching legal framework to analyze the intersections of indigenous land rights and the tourism industry. Drawing from treatises, treaties, and case law, it traces the development of indigenous rights discourse from the Age of Discovery to the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The book highlights the Philippines, home to a rich diversity of indigenous peoples, and a country that considers tourism as an important contributor to economic development. It chronicles the Ati Community’s 15-year struggle for recognition of their ancestral domains in Boracay Island, the region’s premiere beach destination.