Environmental defenders often pay a high price for their commitment. With murders and kidnappings on the rise, defending
the environment can be dangerous. The latest report from the NGO Global Witness revealed that 196 environmental defenders were murdered worldwide in 2023.
According to the NGO that works to protect human rights and curb natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, and corruption, this figure is likely a low estimate. Since 2012, when Global Witness began collecting
data, it estimated that 2,106 people have been killed. “Murder remains a
common strategy to silence defenders,” according to the report released September 10.
Around 85% of the 196
murders recorded in 2023 took place in South America. And in the region,
Colombia, like in 2022, holds the grim record with 79 cases. “This is the
highest annual total for any country documented by Global Witness since we
began our work in 2012,” warns the NGO.
Most of these crimes were
recorded in southwest Colombia’s Cauca, Narino, and Putumayo regions. Criminal organizations are believed to be behind nearly half of
these killings. “Coca cultivation, drug trafficking, and armed conflicts
have devastated these regions, where defenders and communities are often caught
in the crossfire.” This rising number is alarming to organizations,
especially as Colombia prepares to host the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in
October.
Mining, particularly deadly
Across the Americas, Brazil,
with 25 murders, and Honduras and Mexico, with 18 deaths each, are the other
deadliest countries. In Asia, the Philippines,
with 17 deaths, is especially dangerous. In Africa, only four murders were
recorded, though this figure is likely “significantly underestimated”
due to a lack of information.
The report also highlights
the deadliest industries. With 25 defenders killed, mining tops the list as the
most dangerous, far ahead of logging, fishing, agribusiness, roads and
infrastructure, and hydropower.
Beyond murders, many
environmental defenders have been victims of forced disappearances and
kidnappings, particularly in Mexico and the Philippines.
EU restricts freedoms
European countries are not exempt from criticism. Global Witness specifically
calls out the legislation of these states. “Civic freedoms are under
threat in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with
activists increasingly being sued… for participating in peaceful
protests,” the report notes.
Throughout the EU, activists
are “sentenced to disproportionate penalties for minor offenses, and many
are subject to draconian levels of surveillance.”
In February 2024, the UN
Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, also accused
certain countries, noting that “in France, Poland, and Spain,
environmental defenders have been tailed by police and followed to their
homes.”
NGOs have regularly
condemned the use of the term “ecoterrorism,” a favorite of the
resigning French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. The Human Rights League
also denounced the “indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force”
by the state in Sainte-Soline, western France March 25, when a demonstration for preserving a huge
water reserve degenerated into violent clashes between protestors and police.
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Publish date : 2024-09-11 18:00:00
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