• Since 2012, more than two thousand environmental defenders have been killed. 196 in 2023 alone.
• This is what emerges from the latest annual report by the non-governmental organisation Global Witness.
• The negative record belongs to Colombia, with 79 murders in 2023.

Nonhle Mbuthuma won her battle. With the support of her community, she took the oil multinational Shell and the government of her country, South Africa, to court. And she ultimately succeeded in halting seismic tests for the search for oil and gas beneath the seabed off the Wild Coast, an area of extraordinary biodiversity. The Goldman Environmental Prize awarded to her in 2024 bears witness to this great achievement, but it cannot erase everything it cost her. "The role of environmental defenders is not without personal sacrifice. Decades of work to protect our planet have taken a toll on me, physically and emotionally. Our activism has a hidden cost. For years I have faced death threats, acts of violence, criminalisation and harassment," she writes. More than two thousand environmental defenders are no longer here to tell their story, having been killed since 2012. Of these, 196 were killed in the last year alone. This is what is reported in the latest annual report by the NGO Global Witness, of which Nonhle Mbuthuma authors the preface.

Colombia confirmed as the most dangerous country for environmental defenders

The 196 environmental defenders killed in 2023 are only the cases that Global Witness was able to document, but it is reasonable to suppose that many more went unreported. 43 per cent of the victims belonged to an indigenous people, while women account for 12 per cent.

As usual, almost all the murders — 85 per cent to be precise — took place in Latin America and the Caribbean. Colombia breaks every negative record, with 79 murders in 2023 (since 2012, when Global Witness began this count, no country had ever recorded such a high total) and 461 over the eleven years monitored. A glimmer of hope is offered by the fact that the Constitutional Court has just given the green light to the ratification of the Escazú Agreement, whose very aim is to protect environmental activists.

Brazil is in second place in this alarming ranking, with 25 confirmed murders in 2023 and a total of 401 since 2012. But the state with the highest number of crimes per capita is Honduras: between 2012 and 2023 there were 149, that is more than 15,700 per million inhabitants. For 2024, with 18 confirmed murders, Honduras is level with Mexico: a country where indigenous people and those who oppose mining projects are particularly at risk.

Global Witness ✓ @Global_Witness

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🔴196 Land and Environmental Defenders were murdered in 2023

The biggest industry driver of these killings?
➡️Mining operations

25 defenders were killed in 2023 after opposing mining operations to protect their land and communities
This is unacceptable
gwitness.org/4gjQt2k

♥ 9 12 set 2024 · Apri su X →

Industry's designs on Central America's natural resources

The report devotes an in-depth section to Central America, namely Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. The situation there appears explosive, with 36 environmental defenders killed in 2023: a fifth of the global total, despite the region being home to just 1 per cent of the world's population and covering an area comparable to that of Thailand. Since 2012, the documented killings number 314, more than half of which targeted indigenous people. More than nine thousand activists were subjected to attacks over the eleven years monitored.

In terms of natural heritage, Central America is of inestimable value: it is home to 12 per cent of the planet's biodiversity. But it is also at the centre of industry's ambitions, particularly agribusiness: 80 per cent of its vegetation has already been converted into agricultural land. According to Global Witness, so many activists pay with their lives for their commitment in part because governments (often authoritarian) end up protecting powerful economic interests. This is the case in Nicaragua, where protests are suppressed with bloodshed and thousands of NGOs have been dissolved, preventing the population from organising to defend their rights. Or in Guatemala, where criminal groups run rampant. Over the past four years, more than fifty human rights activists, journalists and judges have been forced to flee, to protect themselves from intimidatory and unfounded prosecutions.