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environmental defenders
At Least 146 Killed or Disappeared for 'Defending Life Itself' Last Year
"It is critical that governments and companies turn the tide to uphold defenders’ rights and protect them rather than persecute them," said the lead author of the new Global Witness report.
Sep 17, 2025
At least 142 people were killed and four were confirmed missing last year for "bravely speaking out or taking action to defend their rights to land and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment," according to an annual Global Witness report published Wednesday.
"Year after year, land and environmental defenders—those protecting our forests, rivers, and lands across the world—continue to be met with unspeakable violence," said Laura Furones, the report's lead author, in a statement. "They are being hunted, harassed, and killed—not for breaking laws, but for defending life itself."
"Standing up to injustice should never be a death sentence," Furones declared. "It is critical that governments and companies turn the tide to uphold defenders' rights and protect them rather than persecute them. We desperately need defenders to keep our planet safe. If we turn our backs on them, we forfeit our future."
The report, Roots of Resistance, begins by listing the activists who were murdered or disappeared for six months or more in 2024. It also says: "We acknowledge that the names of many defenders who were killed or disappeared last year may be missing, and we may never know how many more gave their lives to protect our planet. We honor their work too."
The most dangerous country for environmental defenders, by far, was Colombia, with 48 deaths. Jani Silva, a defender there living under state protection, said that "as this report shows, the vast majority of defenders under attack are not defenders by choice—including myself. We are defenders because our homes, land, communities, and lives are under threat. So much more must be done to ensure communities have rights and that those who stand up for them are protected."
Colombia was followed by Guatemala (20), Mexico (18), Brazil (12), the Philippines (7), Honduras (5), Indonesia (5), Nicaragua (4), Peru (4), the Democratic Republic of Congo (4), Ecuador (3), and Liberia (3). There was one confirmed killing each in Russia, India, Venezuela, Argentina, Madagascar, Turkey, Cameroon, Cambodia, and the Dominican Republic. The four disappearances were in Chile, Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines.
"This brings the total figure to 2,253 since we started reporting on attacks in 2012. This appalling statistic illustrates the persistent nature of violence against defenders," the report states. It stresses that while the new figure is lower than the 196 cases in 2023, "this does not indicate that the situation for defenders is improving."
The report notes that "120 (82%) of all the cases we documented in 2024 took place in Latin America," while 16 killings occurred in Asia and nine were in Africa. It emphasizes that "underreporting remains an issue globally, particularly across Asia and Africa. Obstacles to verify suspected violations also present a problem, particularly documenting cases in active conflict zones."
A third of all land and environmental defenders killed or disappeared last year were Indigenous. The deadliest industry was mining and extractives, at 29, followed by logging (8), agribusiness (4), roads and infrastructure (2), hydropower (1), and poaching.
In addition to detailing who was killed or disappeared, what they fought for, and how "the current system is failing defenders," the report offers recommendations for "how states and businesses can better protect defenders."
Currently, said Global Witness project lead Rachel Cox, "states across the world are weaponizing their legal systems to silence those speaking out in defense of our planet."
"Amid rampant resource use, escalating environmental pressure, and a rapidly closing window to limit warming to 1.5°C, they are treating land and environmental defenders like they are a major inconvenience instead of canaries in a coal mine about to explode," she continued.
"Meanwhile, governments are failing to hold those responsible for defender attacks to account—spurring the cycle of killings with little consequence," she added. "World leaders must acknowledge the role they must play in ending this once and for all."
The recommendation section specifically points to the upcoming United Nations climate summit, COP30, in Belém, Brazil, "a city amid one of the world's most biodiverse regions—and one of the most dangerous countries to be a land and the environment defender."
"The protection and meaningful participation of land and environmental defenders at COP30 and beyond is an essential element of the fight against climate change," the document says. "It must become a core principle of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity process."
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Amazon Guardian Paulo Guajajara Was My Friend; 5 Years After His Killing, I Want Justice
Guajajara was the sixth Guardian killed by loggers in the Arariboia forest. News of his death went round the world. Despite that, none of the killers have been caught or tried.
Nov 01, 2024
Paulo Paulino Guajajara looks down and off to one side, the Amazon forest lush and dense behind him.
His voice thickens; he clears his throat. “My mother, she’s unwell. She told me to stop doing this work,” he says, and presses the heel of his hand against his eye to stop a tear.
He looks into the camera, “I told her I’m not scared, that she should let me fight. Because I have a son. And he will need the forest.”
Lobo once said, “Even if they kill me, I won’t stop fighting.”
Paulo, an Indigenous Amazon Guardian, was shot dead five years ago today (November 1, 2019) in the forest he loved—the Arariboia Indigenous Territory, in the Amazon’s northeast.
I was on the other side of the camera when he spoke of his mother’s fears. He wanted the world to know his people, his land, were under threat. He knew illegal loggers were paying gunmen to kill Guardians like him, but he continued to track them, leaving his infant son, wife, and his mother at home.
The Guardians are Guajajara people who protect Indigenous land. They confront illegal loggers, force them to leave, then destroy their camps. They do it to protect their families and for the Awá people, their neighbours who share the territory and some of whom shun all outside contact. Paulo admired the Awá. They are completely self-sufficient in their forest, but cannot survive without it.
Paulo and I met in 2017 when we recorded his video. In 2019 I went on a Guardian patrol as a researcher with Survival International, the global movement for Indigenous and tribal peoples’ rights. It was on that journey, deep in the rainforest, that Paulo and I became friends—and he asked me to call him by his Guardian name, Lobo (‘Wolf’ in English). The group assigns a name that reflects a Guardian’s personality and his place. It binds them together, protects their anonymity.
The Guardians gathered in a clearing to prepare for our patrol. They brought several motorbikes and a quad bike. About 15 men chatted casually as they honed their machetes, checked motorbike chains, and calculated how much petrol to take. They wrapped and stowed a big piece of meat—food for the journey. One man drew a map in the earth with a stick and pointed to the illegal logging camp—the object of our patrol. Well-worn bulletproof vests were distributed, then we got on the bikes and headed into the forest.
Lobo was quiet and focused, pitching in with an easy smile. He insisted I travel with him and his cousin on the more comfortable quad bike. As we rode dirt trails into the thickening forest, he taught me words in Tenetehar, his Indigenous language. He pointed and said, “foot,” “hand,” “elbow.” I repeated, worked to get my mouth around the unfamiliar syllables. Later, I proudly spoke the words he’d taught me, and the Guardians guffawed. I was saying, “ blue foot,” “fat elbow,” “laughing hand.” Lobo just grinned.
We gathered around a fire that night, kept small to prevent detection. The meat was cooked, and Lobo offered it to me on a skewer. He drew his machete, elegantly ran it down the meat’s edge, and urged me to pull away a thin, sinewy slice. It was a welcome treat, dipped in crunchy cassava farinha.
Lobo admired a woolly hat I’d brought from London, so I gave it to him. He cut eye holes and wore it pulled down over his face to keep his identity secret and protect him from the hired assassins. The group spread out and settled on the cold forest floor, wrapped in darkness and sound—the buzz of cicadas and trills of crickets, descants over the rumbling bass line of amorous bullfrogs.
The next day we travelled on foot. The Guardians inspected every snapped twig—evidence loggers were nearby. They examined tire tracks, noting their age and direction of travel. Tension rose as we got closer. We passed a pile of stacked logs and arrived at the camp—an oval-shaped clearing where blue and black tarps sheltered cooking and seating areas.
But the loggers had fled. We ate their breakfast—eggs and a pot of pumpkin they’d left cooking on their fire. And when we discovered a barrel of fresh water, Lobo insisted that I be the first to bathe.
He was angry though, disgusted at the loggers’ intrusion, the theft of trees, the destruction of the forest. And he was frustrated they’d escaped. “I want to burn and destroy this camp,” Lobo said, holding his lighter to a tarpaulin’s edge. “We don’t want anything of theirs in our territory.”
Lobo was out hunting when he was ambushed—shot and killed. Beside him, his friend and fellow Guardian Tainaky Tenetehar was also hit. The impact bent Tainaky over in pain. Straining with every part of his body, he straightened up and ran as blood poured from his right shoulder. Lobo lay dead on the forest floor, still wearing the hat that could not protect him.
Lobo was the sixth Guardian killed by loggers in the Arariboia forest. News of his death went round the world. Despite that, none of the killers have been caught or tried. And on this fifth anniversary of his killing, everything Lobo sought to protect is in greater peril—particularly the uncontacted Awá. They are among more than 150 uncontacted Indigenous peoples around the world—the most self-sufficient and most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Survival International is fighting to stop miners, loggers, ranchers, other extractive industries, and criminals stealing their territory and resources. The loggers are still there, while the Brazilian government fails the Awá by not upholding its own and international laws that require their land be protected for their exclusive use.
When I think of Lobo, I remember his easy laugh, the grin that spread slowly across his face. He always carried a pen drive loaded with his tunes. That smile grew ever wider when his favourite came on: Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” He would close his eyes and hum along.
Lobo once said, “Even if they kill me, I won’t stop fighting.”
His fight continues; for there is a little boy growing up without his marvellous father. And he still needs the forest.
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Honduran Environment and Anti-Corruption Activist Juan López Killed
"If you start defending common interests in this country, you clash with major interests," López said before his death.
Sep 16, 2024
Environment and anti-corruption activist Juan López was killed in Tocoa, Honduras on Saturday in the latest attack on environmental defenders in the country.
López, who had long received death threats but continued to speak out, was gunned down by motorcyclists while leaving church.
Honduran leaders have denounced his killing as murder and vowed to prosecute the perpetrators. No one has yet been arrested. López had in recent days called for the resignation of Adán Fúnez, Tocoa's longtime mayor, for alleged involvement in organized crime and drug trafficking, according to Contrecorriente, an investigative media outlet.
López, a local councilor and member of the Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCP, in Spanish), had long defended forests and rivers from threats posed by mining and hydroelectric companies. He is the fourth CMDBCP member to be killed since last year.
"We condemn the vile murder of Juan López, a renowned defender of common and public goods, councilor of the municipality of Tocoa, a great human being, a great historical fighter, a dear friend," Angélica Álvarez, Honduas' acting human rights minister, wrote on social media. "We demand justice, investigation, and prison for his cowardly murderers."
Honduran environmentalist Juan López works at his home in Tocoa, Honduras, in September 2021. López was killed on September 14, 2024. (Photo: Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images)
López was a member of the ruling Libre party, which has held national power since President Xiomara Castro, a leftist, took office in January 2022. However, he wasn't afraid to call out corruption in his own party.
The last three weeks brought scandal to the party after a video from 2013 emerged in which Carlos Zelaya, a Libre lawmaker and Castro's brother-in-law, and Fúnez, the Tocoa mayor, who's also a party member, are seen negotiating with alleged drug traffickers. Zelaya and Fúnez were trying to boost Castro's 2013 presidential campaign, which was unsuccessful.
Carlos Zelaya resigned office amid the scandal. He is the brother of Castro's husband, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, who led the country from 2006 until 2009 and serves as her principal adviser. There have also been calls for Castro herself to resign.
Amid the national fallout, the video leak also led to debate in Tocoa, a city of more than 100,000 in the country's north, just inland from the Atlantic Ocean. López denounced Fúnez and called for him to resign as Carlos Zelaya had.
It's not clear which of López's political enemies may have ordered his death, but his safety was known to be at risk. He understood that it came with the work he did. He had long fought for the preservation of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers and the Carlos Escaleras nature reserve.
"If you start defending common interests in this country, you clash with major interests," López told Agence France-Presse in 2021.
"If you leave home, you always have in mind that you do not know what might happen, if you are going to return," he added.
Last year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights moved to establish protections for 30 CMDBCP members including López, who reported threats by a gang member, a local businessperson, and a mining company representative. Two men on motorcycles appeared near his home in recent months, the commission reported, according to Reuters.
Ismael Moreno, a well-known Jesuit priest and social reformer, called for an international commission to work alongside Honduran prosecutors to investigate López's killing, given the lack of public confidence in the country's institutions, Contrecorriente reported.
The vast majority of global attacks on environmental defenders take place in Latin America, according to a report released last week by Global Witness, a watchdog group. In 2023, Honduras, despite its relatively small population, tied for third in the world in the number of defenders killed, at 18, behind only Colombia and Brazil.
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'Simply Unacceptable': Nearly 200 Environmental Defenders Killed in 2023
"Activists and their communities are essential in efforts to prevent and remedy harms caused by climate damaging industries," one campaigner said. "We cannot afford to, nor should we tolerate, losing any more lives."
Sep 10, 2024
Almost 200 people were killed in 2023 for attempting to protect their lands and communities from ecological devastation, Global Witness revealed Tuesday.
This raises the total number of environmental defenders killed between 2012—when Global Witness began publishing its annual reports—and 2023 to 2,106.
"As the climate crisis accelerates, those who use their voice to courageously defend our planet are met with violence, intimidation, and murder," Laura Furones, the report's lead author and senior adviser to the Land and Environmental Defenders Campaign at Global Witness, said in a statement. "Our data shows that the number of killings remains alarmingly high, a situation that is simply unacceptable."
At least 196 people were murdered in 2023, 79 of them in Colombia, which was both the deadliest country for defenders last year and the deadliest overall. In 2023, more defenders were killed in Colombia than have ever been killed in one country in a given year since Global Witness began its calculations.
While the government of left-wing President Gustavo Petro has promised to protect activists, organizers on the ground say the situation has only gotten worse for defenders in the past year. Colombia will host the 16th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October, and has promised to highlight the role of defenders in protecting nature. This presents a "historic opportunity" to stand up for the rights of environmental activists, Global Witness said.
Overall, Latin America is the deadliest region for defenders, making up 85% of killings in 2023. It was home to the four deadliest countries for defenders—Colombia, Brazil, Honduras, and Mexico—which together accounted for 70% of all killings. Honduras also saw the highest number of killings per capita, both in 2023 and over the past 11 years.
"It is the job of leaders to listen and make sure that defenders can speak out without risk."
The fifth deadliest country for defenders in 2023 was the Philippines, which saw 17 people killed. Overall, nearly 500 people have been murdered in Asia since 2012, with the Philippines remaining the deadliest country in the region during that time. Global Witness recorded four deaths in Africa in 2023, and 116 since 2012, but noted that this is likely a "gross underestimate" as killings on the continent are more difficult to document due to a lack of information.
Global Witness cannot always link a particular industry to the murders of the land defenders who oppose environmental harm. In Colombia, for example, it estimates that half of people killed in 2023 were killed by organized criminal elements. However, for the deaths it was able to connect, most people died after opposing mining operations at 25. This was followed by logging (5), fishing (5), agribusiness (4), roads and infrastructure (4), and hydropower (2).
The threat of even more mining-related violence looms as nations scramble for the critical minerals necessary for the transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable forms of energy. This dovetails with another component of Global Witness' findings: the disproportionate violence borne by Indigenous communities for defending their homes. Of the defenders killed in 2023, nearly half were Indigenous peoples or Afrodescendants, and almost half of the minerals needed for the energy transition are located on or near Indigenous or peasant land.
Jenifer Lasimbang, an Indigenous Orang Asal woman from Malaysia and executive director of Indigenous Peoples of Asia Solidarity Fund, explained the situation her community faces:
In Malaysia, as in many other countries, we Indigenous Peoples have been subject to wave after wave of destruction. First came the logging and oil palm companies. As a result, nearly 80% of the land surface in Malaysian Borneo has been cleared or severely damaged.
Now, as the world moves away from a fossil-fuel based economy, we're seeing a rush for critical minerals, essential to succeed in the transition to a green economy.
With Malaysia the regional leader in aluminium, iron and manganese production, extracting rare minerals isn't new to us. But our experience so far has been that this comes at a huge environmental cost.
The Malaysian government is issuing an increasing number of prospecting and mining licenses. We know what this new "green rush" means for us. We know it's going to get worse while demand for resources remains high.
Lasimbang said that her community did not oppose development itself, but an "unsustainable and unequal global system" predicated on ever-increasing consumption, and that world leaders should learn from Indigenous communities like hers how to sustain a society without destroying the environment.
"There is only really one thing left to say: Trust us. Let us lead. We will take you with us," Lasimbang said.
While global awareness of the climate crisis and commitments to address it should have translated into greater protections for those on the frontlines of defending biodiversity, that has not been the case. Since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, at least 1,500 defenders have been murdered, Global Witness said.
Even in wealthier countries like the U.K., E.U., and U.S. where killings are less frequent, governments have increasingly repressed environmental activists by criminalizing protest. In 2023, Global Witness observed that the "global surge in anti-protest legislation persisted."
For example, in 2023 the U.K. expanded its Public Order Act to allow police to prosecute certain protests that disrupted national infrastructure or caused "more than a minor" disturbance. In November of that year, police arrested at least 630 people for marching slowly on a public road to protest new fossil fuel projects.
In the U.S., more than 20 states have passed "critical infrastructure" laws that target protests against fossil fuel projects like pipelines. E.U. countries have passed similar laws as well.
Even in the developed world, the criminalization of protest can turn deadly: In January 2023, police in Georgia shot and killed 26-year-old defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, or Tortuguita, as they were camping out in a local forest to prevent it from being bulldozed to facilitate the construction of a "Cop City" training facility.
To protect defenders worldwide, Global Witness called on governments and businesses to document attacks and hold perpetrators to account.
"Governments cannot stand idly by; they must take decisive action to protect defenders and to address the underlying drivers of violence against them," Furones said. "Activists and their communities are essential in efforts to prevent and remedy harms caused by climate damaging industries. We cannot afford to, nor should we tolerate, losing any more lives."
Nonhle Mbuthuma of South Africa, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2024, wrote in the report's forward that both defenders and governments had a role to play in creating a more just and sustainable world as it teeters on the brink of climate and ecological breakdown.
"Now it is my role, as a defender, to push elite power to take radical action that swings us away from fossil fuels and toward systems that benefit the whole of society," Mbuthuma wrote. "It is the job of leaders to listen and make sure that defenders can speak out without risk. This is the responsibility of all wealthy and resource-rich countries across the planet."
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Why Biden Should Pardon Me to Uphold Climate Justice
No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, we should all be able to agree that what happened to me should not happen to anybody in any country that adheres to the rule of law.
Apr 25, 2024
About a month ago, a group of 14 prominent lawyers from the United Stateslaunched a global campaign to demand a pardon from President Joe Biden for my misdemeanor contempt conviction after I helped Amazon communities in Ecuador win a landmark $10 billion pollution judgement against Chevron. While I want a pardon for personal reasons—including the restoration of my freedom to travel and to earn a livelihood—this request is also a major opportunity for the White House to uphold its stated commitments on climate justice, human rights, and corporate accountability.
First, the personal.
I need this pardon because I am the only person in U.S. history to be privately prosecuted by a corporation. More specifically, the government (via a pro-corporate judge) gave a giant oil company (Chevron) the power to prosecute and lock up its leading critic. As a result of this unprecedented and frightening private prosecution, I still cannot travel out of the country and I have been prohibited from meeting with clients I have represented for over three decades. Nor can I practice law, maintain a bank account, or earn a livelihood. I am largely dependent for my survival on the support of people around the world who have contributed to my defense fund, which also pays my hefty legal fees to deal with Chevron’s attacks. I have no bank account because Chevron essentially stole (they would say “garnished”) all of my assets after a judge ordered me to reimburse the company millions of dollars for legal fees they spent trying to destroy me.
This obviously matters deeply to me, to my clients in Ecuador who are deeply suffering from the impacts of Chevron’s pollution, and to anyone who cares about ending corporate retaliation against the climate movement.
The fact 14 highly credible lawyers—among them Marty Garbus, Natali Segovia, and Michael Tigar—are representing me pro bono attests to the merits of the pardon request. To understand the the powerful arguments on our side, I would urge everyone to read the 12-page pardon letter in full, available here.
The private prosecution was carried out by Chevron and two of its U.S.-based corporate law firms, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Seward & Kissel. It happened after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan charged me with criminal contempt after I appealed a clearly illegal order that I turn over my computer and confidential case file to Chevron. This unprecedented order would have forced me as an attorney to violate my ethical duties to my clients and would have put their lives in danger. (The ostensible basis of the order was to allow Chevron to search my computer for supposed hidden bank accounts that might contain money to pay the company the roughly $5 million in legal fees Kaplan ordered that I pay them; the reality is that the reason was manufactured to give the judge a reason to lock me up.)
Significantly, Kaplan’s criminal contempt charges were rejected for prosecution by the regular federal prosecutor in New York, Geoffrey Berman. That decision prompted the judge to illegally appoint the Chevron law firm to act in place of the government prosecutor. Not only was the appointment of a private prosecutor in a case already rejected by the government entirely inappropriate, neither Kaplan nor the law firm ever disclosed to our team that Chevron had been a client until we discovered it months later. Because Chevron had wrested complete control of a public prosecution rejected by the government, I ended up detained for 993 days on a petty misdemeanor charge with a maximum sentence of 180 days. That time included six weeks in a federal prison during a Covid-19 lockdown. Before me, no lawyer had ever been locked up even one day on such a charge.
The entire prosecution was condemned as illegal by the United Nation’s Working Group On Arbitrary Detention ( decision here) and in a detailed report issued by a team of international trial monitors led by former U.S. Ambassador for War Crimes Stephen A. Rapp and Canadian human rights scholar Catherine Morris. It also was condemned as unconstitutional by three U.S. federal judges, including two from the Supreme Court (decision here). In addition, dozens of Nobel Laureates (see article) supported my campaign along with 120 civil society groups, among them Amnesty International and Global Witness (see letter).
No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, we should all be able to agree that what happened to me should not happen to anybody in any country that adheres to the rule of law.
The petition to President Biden from the 14 lawyers states that “a pardon would bring a measure of justice to a prosecution that has been widely criticized as a violation of international law... and as a grave threat to free speech.” It adds: “This pardon is not only critical to protect the First Amendment rights of all advocates regardless of their political orientation, but also is vital to protect the climate justice movement both in the U.S. and around the world.”
Natali Segovia, one of the leading Indigenous rights lawyers in the world, has taken the lead in organizing the lawyers to push for the pardon. This is what she said in our press release announcing the campaign:
Around the world, human rights defenders like Steven Donziger are targeted and even killed for their advocacy and work on Indigenous rights and environmental justice issues. Such extrajudicial human rights violations have come to be expected occurrences in the Global South and “developing” nations at the hands of powerful corporations and extractive corporations who act with impunity and collusion from state governments; for Indigenous peoples and allies that stand to protect the Earth, this is a known assumption of risk. Steven’s case, however, is emblematic of the weaponization of the law by a powerful corporation against a human rights defender—an attorney, to be exact—and sets a dangerous precedent. We know the criminalization of Water Protectors and Land Defenders is on the rise, now we are seeing the rise of corporate-sponsored prosecution, RICO, and SLAPP tactics. If it could happen to Steven, a Harvard-trained human rights lawyer, it could happen to anyone on climate frontlines. This is what we are guarding against. This is why a pardon for Steven barely hits the tip of the iceberg to reverse course, but is a necessary step in ensuring fundamental rights of due process and human rights in the United States.
Others representing me include Jeanne Mirer, the president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers; Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union; Beher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Terrance P. Collingsworth, a leading international human rights lawyer and the director of International Rights Advocates; Jeffrey Haas, the longtime civil rights lawyer who successfully represented the family of Fred Hampton after he was killed by Chicago police; Nadia Ahmad, a visiting professor at Yale and a leading environmental and corporate accountability lawyer; and Scott Badenoch, Jr., an environmental justice attorney and a visiting scholar at the Environmental Law institute.
Our operating assumption is that it is absolutely possible to obtain a pardon if we fight for it. That means creating massive public pressure on why this is so needed not just for one person and his family, but for all justice advocates in our country and across the globe. This obviously matters deeply to me, to my clients in Ecuador who are deeply suffering from the impacts of Chevron’s pollution, and to anyone who cares about ending corporate retaliation against the climate movement.
The best way to support the pardon campaign is to donate at our new crowdfunding site here and to sign the petition here.
This piece originally ran on Steven Donziger’s SubStack, Donziger on Justice. You can also support his campaign by subscribing to his SubStack or visiting his campaign website.
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How to Resist the Expanding Global Land Grab
The International Conference on Global Land Grabbing in Bogotá this week is a step towards strengthening alliances across social justice movements.
Mar 19, 2024
The length of the journey from the sun-scorched Malian lowlands to Colombia's sprawling high-altitude capital wasn't lost on Ibrahima Coulibaly, a longtime leader of the National Coordination of Peasant Organizations of Mali. He is one of 500 activists, academics, and policymakers from 69 countries converging in Bogotá this week to take stock of the state of global land grabbing and define tactics for the way forward.
"We have been engaged in the fight against land grabbing in our community for many years," offered Coulibaly. "And it is equally important for us to articulate our struggles at the international level to carry out the political work necessary to see change."
Mali made headlines as a hotbed of the global land grab in the wake of the 2008 food price crisis when massive tracts of its arable red earth were swept up by foreign investors. The ensuing rural devastation and displacement reflected a bleak new reality for peasant communities throughout the Global South. At the time, Mali had not passed a land law of its own, and a legal hangover from colonial times stipulated state ownership over land. So when foreign agribusiness came knocking, large-scale land deals were easily rolled out across the countryside. Mali's peasant movement resisted, winning a partial victory when it helped put forward agrarian legislation in 2017 that halted some of its most notorious land grabs. But the battle is far from over.
A critical way that local communities work to win back land is through social movements that are active at the global level.
A decade after its apex, the global land grab has slipped out of the spotlight. Rather than having become any less of a problem, a growing number of activists and scholars argue that the current land rush is becoming increasingly complex and entrenched.
"While communities in many countries are still having their land expropriated for large-scale farming, there are also land grabs for energy, carbon, conservation, and infrastructure, with major impacts on livelihoods and human rights," said Ian Scoones, a professor at the University of Sussex.
"Today's land grabs overlap with the most dangerous issues on the planet, including a resurgence of authoritarian politics and the escalating climate crisis," he added.
Colombia is a microcosm of these dynamics, and its selection as the host country of the global gathering organized by the Land Deal Politics Initiative scholar-activist network carries significant political weight. In the 50 years of armed conflict that came to an end with the Colombian peace accord of 2016, some 8 million peasants and Indigenous peoples were displaced across 6 million hectares in multiple iterations of land grabs. Colombia's new government is amenable to resolving these damages; however, the process to implement comprehensive rural reform as outlined in the peace agreement has been arduous.
"Land grabbing, armed conflict, and climate change are interconnected in a cycle that deeply affects rural communities and the environment in Colombia," said Jhenifer Mojica, the minister of agriculture. "The concentration and hoarding of land has generated structural inequality, and is the main reason for violent conflict across the country. It has exacerbated the displacement of rural and Indigenous communities from their territory, so we must put into place policies that stop land grabbing and democratize land access to ultimately achieve peace and stability."
Puerto Gaitán, Meta, is one of many cases in Colombia where land grabs have reached a boiling point—resulting in a standoff between Mennonite settlers of European origin and the local Sikuani Indigenous peoples. According to the Mennonites, who have been in the area for less than a decade, the fertile earth of Puerto Gaitán is a promised land on which to grow corn and soybeans. For the Sikuani, however, these actions amount to an unequivocal land grab—made worse by existing agribusiness operations exporting "flex crops" like palm oil that can withstand market fluctuations because of their multiple functions as food, animal feed, and fuel.
The Sikuani people have filed a case with the government of Colombia, which, unlike some neighboring countries in Latin America, does not cap the amount of land foreigners can own. Even if the peace accords are able to stop internal land grabs, external ones loom large—making any real peace with justice all but impossible. At present, some 1.4 million hectares are controlled by 30 corporations.
"They are only interested in selling the harvest to make more money, but for us, this land is territory," said Jaime Ortiz, a Sikuani leader.
"We are asking the state to return our motherland back to us," added Héctor Estrada, who is also Sikuani.
A critical way that local communities work to win back land is through social movements that are active at the global level.
"Peasant movements play a key role in organizing the solidarity necessary to defend communities that are threatened by land grabs," explained Morgan Ody, a French vegetable farmer and general coordinator of La Vía Campesina. "This resistance often involves joining forces between Indigenous peoples, environmental organizations, feminist movements, and human rights defenders."
The International Conference on Global Land Grabbing in Bogotá this week is a step towards strengthening such alliances across social justice movements, as well as between movements and politically aligned researchers and policymakers. This gathering will help expose the grave risks of a new global land rush and explore options for collective resistance.
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Rights Advocates Demand Probe Into Murder of Environmental Defenders in Honduras
"It's vital that an independent impartial investigation is carried out which must take into account the possibility that Aly and Jairo have been retaliated against for their work defending human rights," said a United Nations researcher.
Jan 11, 2023
Demands for an investigation into the murder of two environmental defenders in Guapinol, Honduras continued to mount Wednesday amid growing doubts that they were killed during what local police and prosecutors claimed was an attempted mugging.
Since Aly Domínguez, 38, and Jairo Bonilla, 28, were shot dead Saturday, their family members, rights groups, and people around the world have called for a probe into whether their deaths are tied to the pair leading grassroots resistance to nearby iron ore mining.
"These horrific murders must end. We fully support the demands... for an independent investigation."
"We reject the official hypothesis," Rey Domínguez, a community leader and Aly's brother, told The Guardian. "These two young men were founders of the struggle to protect our natural resources from an illegal mine that is destroying rivers in the national park. For five years we've been threatened, criminalized, and falsely imprisoned, the only thing left was murder."
As the newspaper detailed:
[A] huge open-pit mine in nearby Tocoa... was authorized inside a protected national park in a process mired by legal irregularities, according to international experts. Community members, including Domínguez and Bonilla, set up a peaceful protest camp after the mine polluted rivers relied upon by thousands of people.
Security forces violently evicted the encampment and dozens of arrest warrants were issued against the protesters. Rey and Aly Domínguez spent time in jail on bogus charges in 2019. International legal and human rights experts widely condemned the criminalization of the activists and the subsequent militarization of the community, which forced several people to flee and seek asylum in the U.S.
"It's vital that an independent impartial investigation is carried out which must take into account the possibility that Aly and Jairo have been retaliated against for their work defending human rights," Michael Phoenix, head of research for Mary Lawlor, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights defenders, told
The Guardian.
The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) on Wednesday reiterated its support for an independent probe.
The institute said Monday that it was "proud" to present its 2019 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award to Honduran environmental rights defenders at the Municipal Committee in Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa.
"We are heartbroken to learn of the murder of two environment defenders, Aly Domínguez and Jairo Bonilla," IPS added. "As we mourn, we fully support the demands of [the group] for an independent investigation to clarify the facts and for the immediate cancellation and cleanup of the mining licenses that have been granted to Honduras company Los Pinares for iron ore mining."
The committee made similar demands in a statement released Saturday that began, "It is with great sadness and a cry for justice that we denounce today's murders of Guapinol community human rights defenders and fathers Aly Domínguez and Jairo Bonilla."
The committee's statement highlighted how dangerous Honduras is for environmental defenders:
Aly, brother of our comrade Reynaldo Domínguez, is also one of 32 people criminalized by the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares and the state of Honduras for defending the Carlos Escaleras National Park against their illegal mining project.
Land defenders in the region face constant threats and harassment. Despite the multiple denunciations and warnings we have made about the increased risk we face, state authorities refuse to guarantee the physical integrity of communities at risk for defending their water and territory from the illegal mining project, nor do they put an end to the environmental contamination caused by mining in a national protected area.
In light of the murder of the defenders, we express our deepest condolences and demand an independent investigation to clarify the facts.
In a message directed at the government of Honduran President Xiomara Castro, the committee added that "we demand the immediate cancellation of the mining licenses in the national park Montaña de Botaderos Carlos Escaleras that cause death and to take urgent measures to guarantee the physical security of the defenders in Tocoa."
While Castro last year banned new open-pit mining, the policy does not apply to existing projects.
"Xiomara Castro came into government promising to protect human rights defenders," said Phoenix, the U.N. researcher. "The imposition of extractive projects on communities without their consent is one of the root causes of attacks against defenders in Central America, but where there is political will, governments can address it. The Honduran government must do more."
In a pair of tweets Sunday, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras condemned the murders, expressed "solidarity with the families of the victims and the community of Guapinol," and urged the country "to carry out a prompt and independent investigation and to guarantee the integrity of the defenders in the Aguán area."
The same day, Honduras' Human Rights Secretariat issued a lengthy statement that "strongly condemned" the killings, called for the state prosecutor to investigate, and acknowledged environmental defenders in the region have been "unjustly criminalized."
Along with offering the victims' families her "deepest condolences," U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Laura F. Dogu said Sunday that she joins the calls of the U.N. office and Honduran secretariat "for a proper and thorough investigation to be carried out."
Trócaire, the Irish Catholic Church's aid agency, also condemned the murders and joined the growing calls for a probe.
"We urge the Honduran authorities to carry out a swift and independent investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice and to fully implement protection measures for all human rights defenders in the Aguán," said George Redman, Trócaire’s country director in Honduras, in a statement Wednesday.
"To work towards a definitive solution to this conflict," he added, "Trócaire supports the demands of Guapinol and neighboring communities for the Honduran government to conduct an urgent audit of alleged irregularities in the approval of the mining concession, for the results to be made public, and for the appropriate action to be taken if due process has not been followed."
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Amazon's Female Defenders Denounce 'Macho' Repression and Demand Rights
'It is time for domestic and international stakeholders to adequately pay attention to the experiences of these Indigenous women defenders.'
Oct 19, 2015
Hoping to shed light on how Ecuadorian Indigenous and mestiza women are subject to systemic criminalization and repression for their work protecting the Amazon rainforest from fossil fuel exploitation and pollution, a panel comprised entirely of such women will on Monday bring their grievances to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in Washington D.C.
Many of the women have experienced attacks, threats, surveillance from the government, public vilification, unjust accusations of terrorism without fair process, and pretrial detention after peacefully participating in demonstrations, according to legal nonprofit EarthRights International, which is supporting the activists in their quest for justice.
And these incidents "are not without a gendered component," EarthRights points out.
"Often discourse on the situation of environmental defenders in Ecuador primarily focuses on the criminalization and repression of men, even in the context of Indigenous rights," said EarthRights attorney Maryum Jordan. "It is time for domestic and international stakeholders to adequately pay attention to the experiences of these Indigenous women defenders and promote positive change that rectifies the types of abuses they disproportionately experience."
Ecuador is witnessing a large-scale Indigenous revolt against the government of President Rafael Correa. In August, Indigenous groups from across the country rose up in a general strike to challenge proposed Constitutional amendments curtailing Indigenous rights and allowing Correa to stay in power indefinitely, a national water privatization law, expansion of mining and fossil fuel concessions, and the government's opposition to bilingual education, among many other concerns.
Women have been at the forefront of marches, community actions, and demonstrations opposing these government policies; they have also experienced a disproportionate crackdown.
"We invite all world women to join us, your Indigenous Sisters of the Americas, to stop the destruction. We are drawing the line and saying that the harms stop here and now."
--Defenders of Mother Earth treaty
A statement from "Women of the Strike" issued in August read in part: "We strongly condemn the macho and criminal brutality with which the State has attacked and criminalized women having participated in the demonstrations... We demand that international human rights institutions call on the Ecuadorian Government to cease these aggressions against people participating in the strike and, in particular, against women's human rights and nature's rights defenders."
Another statement, from a coalition of Indigenous groups, specifically denounced reports of women being "beaten and violently dragged out of their traditional clothing."
"We as defenders in Ecuador face the government's sexism," said Melva Patricia Gualinga Montalvo, a panel participant and protester who identifies as Sarayaku. "Only the women and not the men were ridiculed. The treatment is different."
Added Margoth Escobar, a 63-year-old small business owner and mestiza woman who lives in the city of Puyo in the Ecuadorian Amazon: "I've seen ugly aggressions committed...I saw [the police] beat three women and throwing them to the ground, I saw them beat a boy who was playing the drums, until his head bled."
What's more, added Escobar, the government has been known to release 'sabatinas'--or national news bulletins through which the president informs people of weekly events and activities--which describe activists as "infantile environmentalists," "stone throwers," "lazy," and "the usual suspects." Correa publicly referred to Escobar as a "crazy old lady."
Late last month, Indigenous women leaders, including Montalvo, gathered in New York to sign a historic Defenders of Mother Earth treaty (PDF).
Citing rampant capitalism and commodification, the treaty states: "We understand that we do not have the time to change this system in the manner in which these systems are normally changed. We understand we have run out of time."
To that end, the signatories added, "We invite all women of the world to join us, your Indigenous Sisters of the Americas, to put a stop to the destruction. We are drawing the line and saying that the harms stop here and now."
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