"Standing firm - The Land and Environmental Defenders on the frontlines of the climate crisis", 13 September 2023

...Last year, at least 177 defenders lost their lives for protecting our planet, bringing the total number of killings to 1,910 since 2012. At least 1,390 of these killings took place between the adoption of the Paris Agreement on 12 December 2015 and 31 December 2022. On average, a defender was killed every other day in 2022...

The situation in Latin America remains particularly concerning. In 2022, the region accounted for 88% of killings...Colombia tops the global ranking with 60 murders...In Brazil, 34 defenders lost their lives, compared to 26 in 2021...Mexico, the country with the highest number of killings in 2021, saw a significant drop from 54 murders in 2021 to 31 in 2022...With 14 murders in 2022, Honduras has the world’s highest per-capita killings...

...Global Witness documented 16 killings in Asia, 11 of which took place in the Philippines, which has topped the ranking in the region every year without exception...

...We could...link agribusiness to 10 killings in 2022 – more than in any other sector – half of them in Mexico. Mining was linked with eight cases, followed by logging with four. All three industries are also major contributors to global carbon emissions...

Female defenders were subjected to 11% of the total number of lethal attacks...More than a third (36%) of the defenders murdered were Indigenous peoples and 7% were Afro-descendants...At least five children were murdered last year...

We are also witnessing an emerging pattern of killings in the Amazon, with 39 defenders killed...11 of those killed were from Indigenous communities...As they stand up against powerful agribusiness, mining and logging interests, defenders are systematically intimidated, criminalised, attacked and murdered...

...Gold is the main target of illegal miners in the Kayapó’s territories...International companies from Switzerland, Italy, South Korea, the US and the UK have been exposed for extracting or acquiring the area’s gold, or for selling machinery to the miners...The gold illegally extracted from Kayapó lands has been found in the supply chains of several international companies, including:

• the Italian refiner Chimet
• the London-listed gold-mining company Serabi Gold
• tech giants such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, who have previously purchased illegal gold from Chimet and the Brazilian refinery Marsam, the latter of which has sourced gold from a mining outfit currently investigated for extracting gold illegally from Kayapo land

...A federal police investigation found that Chimet was acquiring gold illegally obtained from Kayapó territory by the Brazilian company Cooperouri (Cooperativa de Garimpeiros e Mineradores de Ourilândia e Região). US tech-giants may have then bought this gold.

According to an investigation conducted by Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative journalism unit in the UK, in partnership with SUMAÚMA and the Guardian, Serabi Gold was operating an illegal gold mine called ‘Coringa’, located in a disputed area that belonged to and is now neighbouring Baú Indigenous territory in the Amazon...A Brazilian Federal Court decision issued in December 2021 ruled that Serabi Gold should not be granted any government licences or authorisations to mine until it has completed a consultation process with the Kayapó...

Serabi told Global Witness that the company is respecting the Court decision and operating with valid licenses that have been granted by Brazilian agencies before the decision and which the court decision did not annul. According to them, one of these licenses is valid until February 2024. The company states that it has completed a study on Indigenous communities in April 2023, which concluded that Coringa field does not present any direct impacts to the Indigenous communities who live in the Baú Indigenous territory. The study has allegedly been presented to the Indigenous communities and is being updated to include their feedback. Serabi said that it has confirmed support for its operations from members of the Indigenous community...

Underreporting of attacks is a significant challenge in both Asia and Africa. Since 2012, Global Witness has documented 443 killings of land and environmental defenders across the Asian continent...

Residents of Sibuyan, a small crescent-shaped island in the Philippines, first heard about a mineral ore export permit held by Altai Philippines Mining Company in January 2023...In Sibuyan, defenders seem to have scored a momentary success against large corporate interests. The Philippine government ordered Altai Philippines to suspend its operations in February 2023, following alleged violations of environmental regulations. The company did not have the required documents to construct the causeway used to transport nickel ore. A government inspection also confirmed community allegations that trees had been illegally felled to build the port...In 2010, Altai Philippines was sold to a subsidiary of Pelican Resources, an Australian company...According to company documents the sale was completed in 2020...

...In June 2023, Hoang Thi Minh Hong became the fifth prominent climate activist to be arrested in Vietnam for alleged tax evasion in the past two years...Three other Vietnamese environmental activists – Dang Dinh Bach, Mai Phan Loi and Bach Hung Duong – are still imprisoned. They all advocated for the development of clean energy and less dependence on thermal coal-fuelled projects...

Dr Yesid Blanco is a Colombian paediatrician, now living in exile in the US after receiving death threats for speaking up against a toxic landfill site near his city – which has reportedly had devastating health impacts on a neighbouring community – and spelled disaster for the environment...

In 2018, I was contacted by a lawyer who said that he belonged to the French waste-management company Veolia. He wanted to know more about the landfill site. Along with other activists, we repeatedly warned him and Veolia about all the environmental and human rights concerns. Nearly all of our correspondence was ignored...A year later, in July 2019, Veolia bought the landfill from its previous owners, Rediba – a company linked to paramilitary groups...