Stop the slaughter

Berta Cáceres, Honduran activist killed in 2016. (Photo courtesy Goldman Environmental Prize).

As the year 2020 closes, two more environmental activists are gunned down in Honduras. Although it’s outrageous, it’s also business as usual for timber thieves, hydro dam builders, and owners of mining projects.

Honduran authorities say they are investigating, but not much is expected. Following the 2016 murder of Berta Caceres in Honduras, the government arrested eight men linked to right wing military death squads, but in 2018, the courts suspended their trial.

Global human rights and environmental organizations are deeply appalled and outraged at the ongoing slaughter of environmental leaders and the journalists who cover their concerns.

One response has been the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean – known as the Escazú Agreement.  The treaty “aims to combat inequality and discrimination and to guarantee the rights of every person to a healthy environment and to sustainable development”.

But even Chile, where the agreement was first conceived, finds the agreement “inconvenient.”

This is an international human rights issue and, in our view,  the Biden Administration should lead a global investigation, The call to conscience cannot be ignored.

For as full a list as we can make, of names of those murdered while defending the environment, see the page on this Environmental History Timeline.

And in the first few weeks of 2021, another seven names are added to the list.