On Tuesday, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet revealed a plan for the government to buy and return disputed lands to some of Chile's indigenous people, according to a report from Reuters.

The indigenous people of Chile, which include the Mapuche, Aymara and Diaguita, aren't well represented in the country's government and often face abject poverty in what is considered one of Latin America's most developed countries.

Bachelet's proposal involves stepping up the government program that buys back disputed, privately owned land claimed by the indigenous people and returning it to them, Reuters reported. The plan also includes giving the communities more representation in the Chilean Congress, though Bachelet didn't specify how that would happen, Yahoo reported.

"It has been nearly 25 years since we got back our democracy," Bachelet said in a statement at La Moneda, the presidential palace. "It is time to have the courage to take new steps with a view not to the short term, but rather the [long-term] development that has been so difficult to obtain for our indigenous sisters and brothers."

Conflicts over the lands have been increasing between the Mapuche people, who have ancestral ties to the land, and the businesses that actually own the land, according to a Santiago Times report. In recent years, the Chilean government has been able to quell some of those conflicts with land transfers, and Bachelet's new proposal would continue that.

"We're at a juncture to expand and recognize the rights of Chile's indigenous communities," Bachelet said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Bachelet is a center-left politician that served as Chile's president from 2006 to 2010 and started another term in March.

Reuters reports that the Mapuche people account for about 600,000 of Chile's population of 17 million people. The Mapuche mostly live in and around Chile's Araucanía Region, which is in the south-central part of the country and among the poorest areas in Chile, according to the Santiago Times.