In the first-ever global study of its kind, researchers concluded that more attention needs to be paid to physical attacks and threats against land defenders, since those incidents often are the precursor to death.
Last year, a human rights and environmental watchdog group determined that 177 land defenders were killed in 2022. Land defenders are people who seek to protect their communities and environmental resources from destructive development projects ranging from pipelines to mines to farms to wind projects.
This month, however, the Alliance for Land, Indigenous, and Environmental Defenders, or ALLIED, found that there were 916 nonlethal incidents in 46 countries in 2022 — or about five for every death. Nonlethal incidents range from written and verbal threats to kidnapping, detention, or physical assaults. The probable perpetrators identified by ALLIED include paramilitary forces, police, local government officials, private security guards, and corporations.
“While police was the commonly named probable ... Read more
