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Murder of environmentalists appears on the rise
New report says violence against environmental activists is growing
Sticking up for the environment can be deadly, and it appears to be getting deadlier as environmentalists are exposed to growing violence, a new report said last week.
A report by the London-based Global Witness said that more than 700 people - more than one a week - died in the decade ending 2011 "defending their human rights or the rights of others related to the environment, specifically land and forests."
They were killed, the environmental investigation group said, during protests or investigations into mining, logging, intensive agriculture, hydropower dams, urban development and wildlife poaching.
The report said that the numbers have risen dramatically in the last three years, and that killings have occurred in at least 34 countries, from Brazil to Egypt, and in both developing and developed nations.
The death toll reached 96 in 2010 and 106 last year, the report, which was released as world leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a conference on sustainable development, said. The report's annual totals for the six prior years range from 37 in 2004 to 64 in 2008.
More than three-quarters of the killings Global Witness tallied were in three South American countries: Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Another 50 deaths occurred in the Philippines. All have bloody land-rights struggles between indigenous groups and powerful industries.
Global Witness' figures are much higher that those that Bill Kovarik, a communications professor at Virginia's Radford University, has been compiling since 1996.
"For many years intolerant regimes like Russia and China and military dictatorships tolerated environmental activists. That was the one thing you could do safely, until some crossed into the political area," Kovarik said. "Now, environmentalism has become a dangerous form of activism, and that is relatively new."
Life holds little value
Both Kovarik and Global Witness believe even more killings have gone unreported, especially in relatively closed societies in countries such as Myanmar, Laos and China. Global Witness said there is an "alarming lack of systematic information on killing in many countries and no specialized monitoring at the international level."
"It is a well-known paradox that many of the world's poorest countries are home to the resources that drive the global economy. Now, as the race to secure access to these resources intensifies, it is poor people and activists who increasingly find themselves in the firing line," Global Witness said.
Julian Newman of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said the killings will only get worse because one of the key flashpoints – land ownership – ignites powerful passions.
"To people protecting their lands, their forests, it's very personal, and they suffer when confronted with influential forces who have protection, be it the police in Indonesia or thugs in China," Newman said.
"It's so easy to get someone killed in some of these countries. Decapitate the leader of the movement and then buy off everyone else – that's standard operating procedure," says Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch.
The countries where environmental killings are most common share similarities: A powerful few, with strong links to officialdom, and many poor and disenfranchised dependent on land or forests for livelihoods, coupled with strong activist movements which are more likely to report the violence.
Environmental groups say it is time to build a comprehensive database of such violence and mount unified campaigns.
"In Asia there has been a rise for some years but this has been off the radar of international NGOs until recently," says Pokpong Lawansiri, Asia head for the Dublin-based Front Line Defenders. "Political rights activists usually have international connections but environmental ones are often teachers, community leaders and villagers, so they have little profile."
Robertson called for "a waves-to-the-beach strategy. It can be small and irregular but it always has to keep coming."
"Without that constant level of concern and anger, things won't change. Governments and companies play for time and for most of the victims and their families time is not on their side," he said.
