Murders of environmental defenders continue

Honduran activist Juan Lopez (murdered September 2024) in a photo taken in front of portrait of fellow Honduran Carlos Escaleras (murdered 1997). (Photo by Lucy Edwards).

Every year, land and environmental defenders around the world are brutally murdered for daring to resist environmental exploitation. In 2023, Global Witness  documented 196 defender killings.

The number this year tips the official total to over 2,000 globally since Global Witness started reporting data in 2012. The organization now estimates  that the total stands at 2,106 murders.

Global Witness published “Missing Voices: the violent erasure of land and environmental defenders”  in September 2024.

Killings in Peru have also been tied to environmental crimes in the Peruvian Amazon,  Mongabay, an environmental webzine, reported in September 2024.

A 2024 journal article on Ecopoliticide. by Delon A. Omrow & Peter Stoett from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Affairs, argues that the strategic murder of environmental activists “is a fundamental threat to human and environmental security.”

Environmental history cannot ignore these atrocities, and this site still attempts to keep track of developments.   

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