Demonstrator at Aug. 9 International Day of Indigenous Peoples rally outside the University of São Paulo Law School in São Paulo, Brazil. Activists defending indigenous land and resources are frequent targets of violence in Brazil and elsewhere in the region. (Photo by Isaac Fontana)
Of the 200 murders of environmental and land-rights defenders worldwide last year, 157 occurred in Latin America, according to the latest annual report released by Global Witness, a London-based nonprofit. The Sept. 29, 2022 report, the 10th such annual accounting issued by Global Witness, says environmental and land-rights defenders globally were slain at a rate of one every two days, with over half of the killings occurring in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines. Just three days after the report was published, Colombian environmentalist and community activist Juan Gabriel Rueda, a regional coordinator for the campaign of recently inaugurated President Gustavo Petro, was murdered, sparking demands for a thorough investigation and an outcry from politicians and rights groups. The Oct. 2 killing of Rueda coincided with environmentalists’ calls on the Colombian Congress to ratify the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental... [Log in to read more]
