Land and Environmental Defenders: Advancing Climate Justice

Evidence suggests that attacks on people engaged in the protection of land and the environment continue to increase across the globe, including through assaults, murders, intimidation, harassment, stigmatization, and criminalization of their efforts. These activists are central to the fight against environmental degradation, with Indigenous territories comprising 70% of the world’s protected biodiversity.

This event was co-organized by a group of organizations working with Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and land and environmental defenders. It aimed to shed light on the repression they face and stress the need for international policy frameworks to support their safe and meaningful participation in decision-making, including at the COPs. Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders moderated the session.

In opening remarks, Jozileia Kaingang, Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, Brazil, said that in the lead-up to COP 30, set to take place in Brazil, where over 1.6 million Indigenous Peoples live, is “the moment for a lot of dialogue” on Indigenous Peoples’ rights. She described advances in her country, including the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples in January 2023, which works collaboratively with other ministries, such as gender and climate. Denouncing that “economic interests incentivize criminal activities” such as deforestation and illegal mining, she called for the protection and meaningful participation of Indigenous women in particular. “We identify ourselves as a women biome,” she added, saying “we are part of life, we belong to the territory and the territory belongs to us.”

Shruti Suresh, Global Witness, said her organization began reporting on the killings of land and environmental defenders in 2012, noting that, on average, one is killed every other day. She argued that these crimes are underreported and that land and environmental defenders are also subject to non-lethal attacks. She stressed that COP 28 was a “critical opportunity to set the tone for the next five years” through the Global Stocktake, which should include language calling for the participation of environmental defenders at every level of decision making. “Join us as we defend the defenders,” she concluded.

A panel of frontline activists then described threats faced and solutions the international community should offer. Txai Surui, activist and land defender, Brazil, said political and economic elites continue to threaten local communities and ecosystems through illegal projects such as mining, which “threaten the lives of Indigenous Peoples but also life on earth as a whole.”

Lia Torres, Director, Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines, described the tactic of “red tagging” to “silence” environmental defenders. Practiced by governments around the world, she explained, this tactic seeks to isolate them by branding them as terrorists or criminals. As “this technique has been effective in some places […] we need to continue asserting the legitimacy of environmental defenders. We need to assert their participation, no matter their beliefs.”

Alma Xochitl Zamora Mendez, journalist, Mexico, described the role of civil society in helping pass Mexico’s 2022 Federal Law for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of Indigenous and Afromexican Peoples and Communities. Despite such laws, she argued, her government continues to criminalize land defenders. The latter’s presence at COP meetings is, therefore, all the more important, she concluded, while highlighting that if key documents were more systematically translated from English into other relevant non-UN language, they would be more accessible.

Micah “Big Wind” Carpenter-Lott, activist, US, said the criminalization of Indigenous activists “began with colonization” and described his experience with being labeled a “terrorist, a jihadist” after taking part in the Dakota Access pipeline protests. He noted threats faced by environmental and land activists in his own country, citing the 2023 killing of Manuel Terán in Atlanta. He lamented the limitations of the US climate bill provisions for oil and gas, noting “You cannot keep funding the problem and putting pennies for the solution.”

Miguel Guimaraes, Inter-Ethnic Development Association of Ucayali, then took the floor to speak of the killing of Quinto Inuma, a Peruvian environmental activist, on 29 November 2023, after receiving death threats for his battle to defend the Amazon rainforest. “In the world, for all of those who contribute to do something positive, who try to defend our forests, our territories, there is a prize, and that prize is assassination.”

Isabel Albaladejo Escribano, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), highlighted that, despite positive developments such as the General Assembly’s recognition of a right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, there is still “a lot to do” to protect land and environmental defenders, particularly in investigating crimes and fighting impunity. She welcomed the identification, the day prior to the event, of a new suspect in the 2015 killing of Honduran activist Berta Cáceres.

In closing remarks, Tawonga Chihana, Natural Justice, highlighted that the critical role of land and environmental defenders “cannot be overstated. They are stewards of the natural environment, with a deeper understanding of the natural ecosystems [and] occupy a fourth of the world’s total land.” Despite some progress made in global frameworks such as the Paris Agreement, she continued, the data collected by Global Witness on the ongoing killings of land and environmental defenders shows that “it is not enough to make laws. Our legal instruments and frameworks must be turned into tangible actions.”

Organizer: Natural Justice, Global Witness, CambiaMO, GreenAdvocates, EarthRights International; Landesa/Rural Development Institute, International Land Coalition – Africa, Civicus, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, ELaw,Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines, and Asia Pacific Network of Environment Defenders.
Contacts: Shruti Suresh I ssuresh@globalwitness.org; Katherine Robinson I katherine@naturaljustice.org
For more information: https://naturaljustice.org/