A record number of people were killed last year for defending their land and environment, according to research highlighting the routine murder of activists opposing the extractive industries that are fueling the climate crisis and destroying nature.
More than four defenders were killed each week in 2019, according to an annual death toll compiled by independent witness Global Witness, amid mounting evidence of opportunistic killings during the Covid-19 lockdown in which activists stayed like “sitting ducks” in their own houses.
Colombia and the Philippines accounted for half of the 212 people killed last year, an increase of almost 30% from 164 deaths in 2018 and 11 more than the previous record in 2017. Most murders went unpunished and the number is likely actual death toll is much higher as many remain undocumented.
The mining industry was linked to the highest number of deaths of land and environmental defenders in 2019, according to the report, followed by agriculture, logging and criminal gangs. Indigenous communities around the world continue to face disproportionate risks of violence, accounting for 40% of defenders killed last year.
Along with the 2019 figures, activists expressed concern that slow or deliberate inaction by governments and corporations to protect vulnerable communities from Covid-19 has led to higher infection rates, raising fear of opportunistic attacks against defenders.
In March, Colombian indigenous leaders Omar and Ernesto Guasiruma were killed while isolated in their home after meeting with a local mayor who had tested positive for Covid-19. Two of the victims’ families were seriously injured in the attack.
In Brazil, where 24 people were killed in 2019, indigenous communities warned that they “face extinction” in the pandemic, and leaders accused far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of “taking advantage” of Covid-19 to eliminate the natives.
In Colombia, where deaths more than doubled last year to 64, the highest number of Global Witnesses ever recorded in a country, the killings of community and social leaders have increased dramatically.
The changes in the dynamics of local power after the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Farc have been cited as drivers of the increasing violence, especially in rural areas, where criminal gangs are repositioning themselves in regions that were previously guerrillas.
With many paramilitary and criminal groups still very interested in drug trafficking, the NGO registered 14 deaths in Colombia linked to a crop substitution program that offers subsidies to coca growers to switch to alternatives such as cocoa and coffee in 2019 .
“Agribusiness and oil, gas, and mining have consistently been the main drivers of attacks against land and environmental defenders, and they are also the industries that push us even further towards runaway climate change through deforestation and increased carbon emissions, “said Rachel Cox, Global Witness activist.
“Many of the worst human rights and environmental abuses in the world are fueled by the exploitation of natural resources and corruption in the global political and economic system. Defenders of land and the environment are the people who oppose this.
“If we really want to make plans for an ecological recovery that puts the safety, health and well-being of people at its heart, we must address the root causes of attacks on defenders and follow their example to protect the environment and stop the climate collapse. “
Murders continued to increase in the Philippines, which was the world’s deadliest country for people defending their land and environment in 2018, with 48 deaths recorded last year.
They include that of indigenous leader Datu Kaylo Bontolan, who was killed on April 7, 2019 during a military air raid in northern Mindanao, which is at the heart of President Rodrigo Duterte’s plans to convert large tracts of land into industrial plantations. .
The Manobo leader had opposed commercial logging and mining on his ancestral lands and had returned to the mountainous region to document violence against his community.
While Europe remained the least affected continent, two rangers were killed in Romania in 2019 while working to stop illegal logging in some of the continent’s most pristine forests, which are among the 19 state and park officials killed across the world.
More than two-thirds of the verified murders took place in Latin America in 2019, including 33 in the Amazon region alone. Deaths rose from four in 2018 to 14 in 2019 in Honduras, making the Central American country the most dangerous country in the world per capita for land and environmental defenders, according to the report.
The NGO said limited monitoring capabilities in Africa meant that deaths there were unreported, with seven verified murders of environmental activists on the continent in 2019.
Four defenders have been killed every week since the Paris Agreement was signed in December 2015, according to Global Witness, and many more were silenced by the threat of attack, intimidation, and sexual violence.
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