HQ Team
October 6, 2024: More than 200 people were murdered worldwide last year while trying to protect their lands and the environment from corporations, governments and non-state actors, according to a Global Witness report.
The Global Witness, which investigates environmental and human rights abuses in the oil, gas, mining and timber sectors, documented 196 defenders who were murdered.
“The actual number is likely to be higher,” it stated. “This tips the total number of killings to over 2,000 globally since Global Witness started reporting data in 2012. Global Witness estimates that the total now stands at 2,106 murders.”
Latin America consistently has the most documented murders of land and environmental defenders – 85% of cases in 2023, according to the report.
“Murder continues to be a common strategy for silencing defenders and is unquestionably the most brutal.”
Intimidation, smear campaigns
Lethal attacks on defenders often occur alongside wider retaliation against those who are being targeted by government, business and other non-state actors with violence, intimidation, smear campaigns and criminalisation.
Murdered defenders were, in different ways, trying to protect the planet and uphold their fundamental human rights. Every killing leaves the world more vulnerable to the climate, biodiversity and pollution crises.
“This is happening in every region of the world and almost every sector.”
The top four nations, where 70% of the attacks happened, were Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Mexico. Of those murdered in 2023, 43% were Indigenous Peoples and 12% were women.
Colombia is the world’s deadliest country for land and environmental defenders, with 79 murdered in 2023 – 40% of all reported cases.
Organised crime groups
“This is the highest annual total for any country documented by Global Witness since we began documenting cases in 2012.”
Organised crime groups are suspected to be the perpetrators of half of all defender murders in Colombia in 2023. A mix of coca cultivation, drug trafficking and armed conflict has devasted these regions, with defenders and communities often caught in the crossfire.
While the government of President Gustavo Petro has made commitments to reduce violence, these have not yet led to a decrease in reprisals against some of the country’s most vulnerable activists and communities.
The Colombian government has a historic opportunity to address these challenges as the host of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which will be held from October 21 to November 1, 2024, in Cali, Colombia.
Similar trends are evident in Mexico and Honduras, with 18 defenders killed in each country in 2023 – down from 31 in 2022 in Mexico, and up from 14 in Honduras.
The seven countries that makeup Central America – Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama – are roughly the same size as Thailand. This small area contains 12% of the world’s biodiversity.
Perpetrated by state
Recent research has also shown that, between 2012 and 2023, more than 9,000 women human rights defenders were the subject of attacks across Central America and Mexico.
Almost half of those attacks were perpetrated by the state, often acting to protect the interests of extractive industries and organised crime.
Authoritarian regimes provide political and economic elites with impunity to use violence to maintain corrupt networks and ensure control over natural resources, according to the report.
Northern Nicaragua contains the second-largest rainforest in the western hemisphere, the Bosawás. The area is also home to two of Nicaragua’s most vulnerable Indigenous Peoples, the Mayangna and Miskito.
All 10 murders Global Witness registered in Nicaragua in 2023 were of Indigenous Peoples, as were 69 out of the 70 cases documented between 2012 and 2023.
‘Corporations collude with national elites’
Central America has for decades been subject to unsustainable extractive activities, including logging, mining, energy projects, and monoculture plantations.
Multinational corporations have colluded with predatory national elites to run roughshod over community rights and consultation procedures. Communities that have resisted and sought to defend their lands and resources have faced violent repression and death.
In Asia, 468 defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2023 – 64% in the Philippines (298), with additional cases in India (86), Indonesia (20) and Thailand (13). In 2023, the Global Witness recorded killings in the Philippines (17), India (5) and Indonesia (3).
“Establishing a direct relationship between the murder of a defender and specific corporate interests remains difficult. However, we were able to identify mining as the biggest industry driver by far, with 25 defenders killed after opposing mining operations in 2023.”
