A record report shows that last year a record total of 227 people were killed defending the environment

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Global Witness, a human rights and environmental watchdog, collected and analyzed 2020 data from around the world related to lethal attacks on environmentalists and found that an average of more than four people a week died while they defended the environment.

Global Witness reported that most of the murders occurred in Latin America. Colombia was the hardest hit country, the group said, with 65 defenders killed to protect indigenous land or defend forests and its coca crops. Mexico, where a third of the attacks were related to deforestation, took second place with 30 killings.

The Philippines was the only country in the region to record more than 15 deaths, Global Witness reported: 29 people died trying to stop mining, forestry and dam projects. Together, more than half of the 2020 attacks occurred in these three countries, according to Global Witness.

Family members of some victims described to Global Witness that the blockades during the pandemic facilitated the attack of defenders in their homes, aimed at taking over governments and businesses to protect the natural resources on which their communities depend.

The climate crisis is reducing natural resources. Scientists said in August that the planet is warming much faster than previously thought. Without rapid and profound cuts in fossil fuel emissions, communities can face irreversible changes in the ecosystems and natural resources they need.

“2020 was supposed to be the year the world will stop, but our data shows that this would not translate into safer results for those who defended our planet,” Chris Madden, one of the authors of the report.

“It is clear that the inexplicable exploitation and greed that are driving the climate crisis is also having an increasingly violent impact on people,” he added.

Climate change, as well as rampant urbanization and industry, have led to water shortages in many of these countries. Along the southwestern United States, parts of Mexico, which ranked second on the list of most murdered countries, have been affected by the first water shortage on the Colorado River, which supplies about 40 million people. in the western region, including Mexico.

More than 70% of the attacks were against people defending forests (one of the planet’s natural carbon sinks) due to deforestation and industrial development, according to Global Witness. The watchdog says others died to protect rivers, oceans and other coastal ecosystems.

The report considers logging to be the largest sector related to most murder cases, with 23 in Brazil, Nicaragua, Peru and the Philippines collectively, followed by the fight for water rights and against construction and mining of dams.

And while accounting for only 5% of the world’s population, more than 30% of all deadly attacks targeted indigenous peoples by 2020. Global Witness documented them in Mexico, Central and South America, as well as the Philippines. .

Environmental activists in Africa are also suffering from the same violence, but researchers say little could be reported. Global Witness documented 18 killings on the continent in 2020, a jump of just seven in 2019. Most of these attacks took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while the rest took place in South Africa and Uganda.

The report found that more than one in 10 advocates killed in 2020 were women, reflecting a 2020 study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature that found that climate change and climate degradation environment fueled violence against women.

“We know that beyond murders, many advocates and communities also experience attempts to silence them, with tactics such as death threats, surveillance, sexual violence or criminalization,” the authors wrote. “Such attacks are even less well communicated.”

Adrien Salazar, policy director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, said the report’s findings also reflect what is happening in the United States, where police are cracking down on indigenous organizers protesting the expansion of fuel infrastructure fossils such as the Enbridge Line 3 gas pipeline in Minnesota.

“Activists in the global north face greater criminalization, while environmentalists in the global south face a growing risk of death,” Salazar, who was not involved in the report, told CNN .

“It is not surprising that the killings of environmentalists have increased again,” he added. “As this new report shows, these advocates, and in particular indigenous environmental advocates, are risking their lives to protect our future.”

Global Witness researchers analyzed international and national data sets listing attacks on environmentalists, search engine alerts, news sources, and information from dozens of local, national, and regional organizations around the world. They also examined data in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Although Global Witness has been documenting environmental attacks around the world since 2012, the group noted that they may have been counting the killings, as many parts of the world have no free press or independent control of the attacks.

The authors and Salazar warn that as the climate crisis intensifies, so do the attacks on those trying to stop it.

“As the climate crisis and ecological devastation accelerate, companies that perpetrate these crises will be relentless in their pursuit of profits even above the cost of human life,” Salazar said. “Every life and every story matters. As long as the violence against the land continues, the resistance will continue.”

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