New Report: Global Witness documents rising global threats to land and environmental defenders worldwide
"Roots of resistance, Documenting the global struggles of defenders protecting land and environmental rights" 17 September 2025
This report is dedicated to all those individuals, communities and organisations bravely speaking out or taking action to defend their rights to land and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment....
In 2024, 146 land and environmental defenders around the world were murdered or disappeared....
They were all attacked after speaking out or taking action to defend their right to land and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment....
A total of 82% of all the cases we documented in 2024 took place in Latin America, where we have recorded the highest proportion of cases every year for over a decade. This violence continues to severely hamper the lives of defenders....
Colombia remains one of the world’s deadliest countries for land and environmental defenders, with a third of all lethal attacks globally documented happening here in 2024. We recorded 48 killings across the country – a drop from 79 cases in 2023....
Mining emerged as the deadliest sector, with at least 29 related cases in 2024. Next came logging with eight cases and agribusiness with four...
Many were opposing harmful extractive projects, like mining, logging or agribusiness. Others were challenging systemic problems, like land inequality, environmental destruction and organised crime....
"The threats our communities face are sustained by weak state protection measures, the weaponisation of laws against us, and high levels of impunity – so defenders like [Indigenous Mapuche leader Julia Chuñil] receive little to no justice."...
In Latin America and the Caribbean, almost 1,000 defenders have been murdered or disappeared since the adoption of the Escazú Agreement – a regional treaty that is designed to protect them – on 4 March 2018.
Legal systems the world over are failing defenders in multiple ways. Defenders speaking out for justice, remedy and their communities’ rights often have to work within inadequate, under-resourced and sometimes corrupt legal systems...