"Grim Report Shows How Many Environmental Activists Were Killed Last Year", 28 Jul 2020

The year 2019 was the most dangerous on record for environmental activists, a new report says. Every day around the world, people stand up to companies exploiting land for profit, felling trees, damming and polluting waterways, displacing ancestral homes and destroying wildlife habitats. Every week, an average of four of these defenders are killed.  The Global Witness… report… counted 212 people killed last year for their efforts to protect the Earth from the destructive effects of development for oil and gas, mineral extraction, agriculture, logging…  “Our figures are almost certainly an underestimate,” the authors write… The violence is especially high against Indigenous people, who accounted for 40% of land defenders killed… though they make up only about 5% of the world’s population… Violence… is greatest in Central and South America… The Global Witness report counted… 33 people killed defending the Amazon, a vital but threatened repository for atmospheric carbon. Escalating deforestation from logging, mining, fires, and agriculture — actions… encouraged by Brazil’s… Jair Bolsonaro — threaten the forest, indigenous people… and the… climate… The struggles of the Indigenous communities against destructive development is an existential issue, said María Martín Quintana, advocacy coordinator for…IM-Defensoras, impacting “their ways of life and the survival of life in their territories.” Violence is also “classist, racist and misogynist,” she added…