NEWS CENTER – At least 1,733 land and environmental defenders were killed between 2012 and 2021, killed by gunmen, organized crime groups and their own governments. Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, Mexico and Honduras are the deadliest countries, according to Global Witness figures.
Global Witness has released its report on the killing of land and environmental advocates around the world every year since 2012, following the murder of Chut Wutty, a Cambodian environmentalist who was investigating illegal logging. Despite the epidemic, murders broke a record at 227 in 2020.
The killings disproportionately affected low-income countries and Indigenous communities; Despite making up only 5 percent of the world’s population, 39 percent of those killed were from this demographic.
The mining and mining industries, logging and agribusiness were the most common causes of a murder when one reason was known. The report’s authors warned that the numbers are likely to be significantly underestimated and do not capture the full scale of the problem, with deaths occurring frequently in ecosystems crucial to averting the worst effects of the climate crisis.
Among the 200 killed in 2021 are eight park rangers in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are threatened with additional oil and gas extraction, environmental activist Joannah Stutchbury who was shot outside her home in Kenya, and 50 minors killed in Colombia last year. There was also Ángel Miro Cartagena, one of the scale farmers.
In June this year, journalist Dom Phillips, who has written extensively for the Guardian and Observer, and Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian expert on out-of-contact tribes, were killed after they disappeared in the Javari valley in Brazil’s Amazon region. Phillips was working on a book on sustainable development called How to Save the Amazon, and Pereira was helping him with interviews. The investigation into their murder continues.
SIGNIFICANT VICTORIES ALSO ACHIEVED
On the other hand, the report noted some significant victories for environmental campaigners. In South Africa last year, Indigenous communities on the Wild Coast of South Africa’s Eastern Cape won a legal victory over Shell, forcing the company to stop oil exploration in its whaling fields. The decision was approved earlier this month.
In May of this year, communities on Indonesia’s Sangihe Island won a lawsuit against a Canadian-backed company that planned to mine gold on their island after an earlier challenge for technical reasons.
“While the death toll remains high, one thing I took away from doing this research is that in the past few years environmental advocates have had some significant victories, including against multinationals,” said Ali Hines, campaigner at Global Witness and author of the report.
MORE THAN TWO THIRD MURDERES ARE IN LATIN AMERICA
Between 2012 and 2021, more than two-thirds of the killings of people trying to protect forests, rivers and other ecosystems took place in Latin America, with 342 killed in Brazil and 322 in Colombia. 154 people died in Mexico and 117 in Honduras. The Philippines was another country that was reported with 270 murders.
TWO FACTORS MAKING MURDERS EASY
“It’s a global problem, but it happens almost exclusively in the global south,” Hines said. “Corruption and inequality are two kinds of key factors that facilitate murders. For example, there may be investment agreements between companies and corrupt officials during the land registry process. Advocates seeking justice sometimes confront bribed judges. This leads to the third factor with high impunity rates. Cases are rarely reliably investigated, let alone brought to justice.”
The report calls on governments to help create a safe civic space for environmental defenders and promote legal accountability of corporations, ensuring zero tolerance for violence against activists.
