Defending Tomorrow: The Climate Crisis and Threats Against Land and Environmental Defenders
2020
This report from Global Witness examines the increasing violence against land and environmental defenders, many of who come from indigenous communities. Land and environmental defenders play an essential role in climate justice movements, holding accountable companies and commercial projects that threaten forests, skies, wetlands, oceans and biodiversity. Indigenous defenders, in particular, represent a wealth of knowledge on responsible land and water stewardship.
In 2019, however, 212 defenders were killed, the greatest number murdered in a single year. More than half of the reported killings occurred in Colombia and the Philippines, and were most frequently tied to agribusiness, oil and gas, and mining sectors. Last year, 40 percent of murdered defenders belonged to indigenous communities. Since 2015, over a third of all fatal attacks have targeted indigenous people, though they only make up 5 percent of the world's population. Insecure land tenure and histories of oppression contribute to this vulnerability. Though indigenous and local communities are estimated to hold rights to more than half of the world’s land mass, they hold legal title to just 10% of it.
The report underscores the difficulty in holding perpetrators responsible -- a consequence of underreporting, impunity, and corruption -- and illustrates case examples of climate-related conflicted across the globe.
Defending Tomorrow: The Climate Crisis and Threats Against Land and Environmental Defenders
Source:
Defending Tomorrow: The Climate Crisis and Threats Against Land and Environmental Defenders. Global Witness 2020. https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/defending-tomorrow.