At least 146 defenders of the earth and the environment were killed or disappeared all over the world last year to defend their land, their communities or the environment.
This was revealed by the NGO Global Witness, which has just published its annual report on the defenders of the earth and the environment, the Roots of Resistancewhich showed that the total number of defenders killed or disappeared from 2012 to 2024 is at least 2,253.
The organization documented 117 killings of defenders last year (82%) in Latin America, with 48 in Colombia, which had the greatest number of killings globally for the third consecutive year. The Guatemala follows, where 2024 were killed in 2024, compared to the four of 2023.
In total, moreover, in 2024 four defenders disappeared who were not found: one in Chile, one in Honduras, one in Mexico and one in the Philippines. Once again, the indigenous peoples have been victims of about a third of the lethal attacks, despite constitutes about 6% of the world population.
Year after year, the defenders of the earth and the environment – those who protect our forests, our rivers and our lands all over the world – continue to undergo unspeakable violence. They are hunted, harassed and killed, not for having broken the laws, but for defending life itself, declares the main author of the new Global Witness report, Laura Furones.
Opping the injustice should never be a death sentence. It is essential that governments and companies reverse the trend to support the rights of the defenders and protect them rather than persecute them. We have a desperate need for defenders to keep our planet safe. If we turn our backs, we lose our future.
Last year, a total of 29 cases were linked to mining and extractive activities, eight of the deforestation and four to the agri -food. Over 62% of cases (91 out of 146) were linked to agricultural or agricultural reform. To perform the crimes? Criminal organizations, with 42 cases, followed by the private military, with 17, and the assassins, with 13.
Although the statistics on the killings and disappearances of last year are lower than those of 2023 (196 compared to 146), alternative tactics to silence the defenders seem to be increasing globally, such as kidnappings and criminalization. In recent years, the use of criminalization has grown in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and the EU, with the introduction of new Draconian laws that led to hard and disproportionately long convictions for environmental protesters.
On a global level, the existing laws are used as a weapon against the defenders to end their activism, with the states that accuse them of crimes such as tax evasion or terrorism.
States all over the world are arming their legal systems to silence those who speak in defense of our planet, declares Rachel Cox, head of the Global Witness project. Among the rampant use of resources, the escalation of environmental pressure and a window that closes quickly to limit the heating to 1.5 ° C, the defenders of the earth and the environment are dealing with as if they were a large inconvenience instead of canaries in a coal mine in the process of exploding.
In short, the new report of Global Witness can only urge governments to dismantle the most levels that allow the continuation of violence against the defenders. This includes to face the lack of rights that defenders have on land and territories, strengthen the weak national legal systems and ensure that the defenders at risk receive adequate state protection. It would be time to no longer witness this authentic massacre.
