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"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."
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."
If designating areas as World Heritage Sites endangers the survival of Indigenous peoples in African countries, UNESCO and IUCN’s outdated, colonial, and top-down approach to conservation must be dismantled immediately.
In the early morning of August 18, the safari cars that usually creep along the Ngorongoro-Serengeti highway, slowed by their sheer numbers, encountered a different challenge. Thousands of Maasai men and women, draped in red-patterned Shuka cloth and waving grass, a symbol of peace, were blocking the highway.
They were staging a peaceful protest against the Tanzanian government’s latest ruthless attempt to forcibly evict them from their ancestral lands. The police, wary of using violence in front of international tourists as they had in neighboring Loliondo in 2022, resorted to intimidation tactics instead, blocking vehicles carrying food and water from Karatu to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) to weaken the resolve of the demonstrators.
“We are not blocking this highway out of choice. We are doing it for necessity. For too long our voices have been ignored, and out rights have been trampled. This is our last resort.”—Statement of the Maasai Community, NCA, August 18, 2024
A Maasai woman holds a sign reading, “This is our ancestral land.” (Photo: The Maasai elders, NCA)
Since Tanzania’s colonizers established the Serengeti National Park in 1951—displacing Indigenous residents to Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA)—the pastoralist Maasai in Northern Tanzania have faced relentless struggles against evictions and human rights abuses. For the past four years, their resilience has endured brutal attacks designed to expel them from their ancestral lands, transforming the region into a people-free zone to enhance safari tourism and hunting, as glorified in Western media like Planet Earth. These atrocities are masked as environmental conservation and protection.
In April 2021, the Tanzanian government announced the Multiple Land Use Management Plan (MLUM), posing a grave threat to the Maasai’s survival in the NCA. This followed the March 2019 joint monitoring mission by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which urged the government to control population growth in the NCA. The government responded by prioritizing tourism revenue, enacting the MLUM and a resettlement plan that expanded the NCA from 8,100 square kilometers to 12,083 square kilometers and created new restricted areas. In essence, this condemned nearly 80,000 Maasai to lives of destitution or death through forced evictions and the destruction of their livelihoods.
“The evictions and restrictions constraining tens of thousands of livelihoods are not about ensuring conservation but about expanding tourism revenues within the World Heritage Site. Tourism within the NCA has exploded in recent years with the number of annual tourists increasing from 20,000 in 1979 to 644,155 in 2018, making it one of the most intensively visited conservation areas in Africa. The number soared to 752,215 in 2023.”—The Oakland Institute
Maasai mobilize for their political rights. (Photo: The Maasai elders, NCA)
In response to international condemnation, the government falsely claimed that Maasai were volunteering en masse for resettlement at two relocation sites—Msomera village in Handeni district and Kitwai A and B villages in Simanjiro district. The flawed resettlement plans forced 11,000 Maasai community members from the NCA to send a letter to the government and its main donors stating their demand to remain in the NCA.
“This is not the first time that we are fighting to secure our rights and protect the lives of our people—we need a permanent solution and we need it now. We will not leave; Not Now, Not Ever!”—A Letter from Maasai Community to Tanzanian Government & International Donors, 2022
Despite the government’s claims that the Maasai’s relocation is voluntary, they have been forcibly uprooted by a systematic denial of essential social services, including education and healthcare. In May 2024, the government slashed nearly half of the budget for Endulen community hospital, the main healthcare provider for nearly 100,000 Maasai pastoralists in the NCA. These cuts ended vital support for facility repairs and community health initiatives. The grounding of the Flying Medical Service in 2022, after 39 years of critical emergency care, left over 24,000 children unvaccinated, deprived more than 5,700 pregnant women of necessary medical attention, and halted the delivery of life-saving HIV medications. While no official count of fatalities exists, it is undeniable that lives have been lost as a result.
Maasai hold protest signs on the Serengeti-Ngorongoro highway. (Photo: The Maasai elders, NCA)
In August, after failing to forcibly remove the Maasai from the NCA, the government struck a severe blow to their political rights. Ngorongoro Division was removed from the voters’ register, disenfranchising tens of thousands of Maasai pastoralists ahead of the upcoming local and general elections in 2025. Those registered to vote saw their polling station moved hundreds of miles away to Msomera village—the site of their forced relocation—effectively stripping even more Maasai villagers of their right to vote.
Adding to this assault on their political rights, Government Notice (GN) 673, issued on August 2, 2024, delisted 11 wards, 25 villages, and 96 subvillages in Ngorongoro Division, affecting over 110,000 people, all without obtaining their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. This blatant violation of their rights sparked the August 18 protest, where Maasai residents demanded the reversal of GN 673 and the restoration of their electoral rights by the National Electoral Commission.
“We urge the Minister of Local Government to revoke and cancel Government Notice No. 673 of 2024, as it violates the constitution, laws, and international and regional treaties that Tanzania has signed and ratified.”—Onesmo Olengurumwa, National Coordinator, Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition
As images of the Maasai, armed with grass and placards, demanding justice, went viral on August 22, 2024, the Arusha High Court temporarily suspended GN 673, pending further instructions. However, community lawyers have condemned the ruling as a sham. The court’s decision followed an injunction supposedly filed by Ngorongoro resident Isaya Ole Posi, who denies any involvement. Allegations have surfaced that the government paid the lawyer who filed the injunction against itself, in a calculated move to divert international attention sparked by the protests.
Stranded tourists stand watching the Maasai protests. (Photo: The Maasai elders, NCA)
While the Tanzanian government must undoubtedly be held accountable for violating the rights of its citizens, we must also scrutinize the role of two other key actors. The first are international conservation bodies like UNESCO, IUCN, and ICOMOS, under whose influence the government’s Multiple Land Use Model (MLUM) and resettlement plan were developed. It took an extensive global campaign to shift their stance. UNESCO’s website carries the government’s February 2024 report on the conservation status in the NCA, providing the false narrative that the relocation of local communities is voluntary, adheres to international best practices, and includes compensation measures. Yet, it also notes ongoing concerns from local communities, acknowledging the need for a human rights-based approach.
If designating areas like the NCA as World Heritage Sites endangers the survival of Indigenous peoples in African countries, UNESCO and IUCN’s outdated, colonial, and top-down approach to conservation—while boosting tourism—must be dismantled immediately. These institutions have reluctantly admitted that the NCA’s multiple land use model is appropriate, rather than altering its protected area category with disastrous consequences for residents. However, they have ignored calls for the NCA to be delisted from World Heritage sites and failed to pressure the government to stop its human rights violations.
As for the international tourists who continue to flock to Tanzania, lured by the chance to witness the “Big Five” or hunt trophies, the August 18 protests should serve as a wake-up call. The Maasai protesters and their global supporters have made their message clear: This is no longer a scene from “Out of Africa.” If there is no respect for Indigenous lives, then it must be “Tourism out of Tanzania!”
The U.S. is projected to spend over $750 billion on nuclear weapons over the next decade—a fact it feels impossible to reconcile with the abandonment of the people affected by that spending.
It’s been nearly 80 years since the first atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico. Communities have been reeling ever since.
For generations, Americans who live “downwind” of nuclear testing and development sites have suffered deadly health complications. And this summer, funding for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expired, putting their hard-earned compensation at risk.
Coming alongside sky-high spending on nuclear weapons development, this lapse is an outrage. Funding for these communities, which span much of the country, should be not only restored but expanded.
To protect future generations—and our own—the ultimate goal should be an end to all nuclear weapons development.
Alongside New Mexicans, people in Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Utah, and beyond have suffered health complications from nuclear testing in Nevada. And fallout from decades of tests ravaged the Marshall Islands, which were occupied by the U.S. after World War II.
Communities in Colorado were exposed to radiation from the Rocky Flats weapons plant. And people living near Missouri’s Coldwater Creek were exposed when World War II-era nuclear waste was buried there.
Over the generations since, tens of thousands of people have been affected. Health impacts include respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, birth defects, and elevated rates of cancer.
We’re from New Mexico, the only “cradle-to-grave” state in which all steps of the nuclear production process—mining, testing, and disposal—occur together. We’ve lived near impacted communities our entire lives.
Tina Cordova, co-founder of New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, says five generations of her family have suffered health and economic impacts from nuclear testing. “We are forced to bury our loved ones on a regular basis,” she said.
Uranium mining in the Navajo Nation has also taken a terrible toll. Between 1944 and 1986, 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo land. Indigenous miners were exposed to radiation without proper safety protocols, resulting in aggressive cancers, miscarriages, lung diseases, and other illnesses.
After decades of struggle to get compensation, communities impacted by nuclear weapons development finally won passage of RECA in 1990—45 years after the first atomic bomb was dropped.
The initial law provided $2.6 billion to around 41,000 individuals, limiting coverage to onsite participants and downwinders within designated areas of the Nevada Test Site. The bill was amended in 2000 to include those who contracted cancer or other specific diseases from working as uranium miners between 1942 and 1971.
Since then, there have been bipartisan efforts to expand the bill’s narrow scope to other impacted communities. In response to years of advocacy, an extended and expanded version of RECA successfully passed the Senate this spring with 69-30 in favor—and President Joe Biden’s backing.
The bill would have expanded RECA eligibility to all downwinders in Idaho, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, and Guam, along with previously excluded areas of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. And it would have included miners exposed to radiation until 1990.
But Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson blocked a vote in the House, abandoning the unseen victims of the U.S. nuclear arms race. Now RECA has expired altogether.
It’s not for lack of money. The U.S. is projected to spend over $750 billion on nuclear weapons over the next decade—a fact it feels impossible to reconcile with the abandonment of the people affected by that spending.
Meanwhile, people are still being exposed to radiation.
Even now, 523 abandoned uranium mines containing waste piles remain on Navajo territory—and companies continue to haul uranium through Navajo land, despite a nearly two-decade old ban on uranium mining there.
Mismanagement of nuclear waste is another ongoing concern. In 2019, 250 barrels of waste were lost en route to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
To protect future generations—and our own—the ultimate goal should be an end to all nuclear weapons development. But as we work toward that goal, repairing the harm to impacted communities—by renewing and expanding RECA—is a necessary next step.