“How many more people will die before the world takes notice?”
That’s a question posed by the organization Global Witness, whose new report, How Many More?, exposes what it calls a “hidden crisis” of murders of those who defend the earth from environmental destruction.
The “overarching theme” of the killings last year, which averaged more than two a week, involved disputes over control and use of land, but they also included incidents involving pollution, wildlife conservation, and illegal fishing. This year’s report also found a spike in the deaths of those protesting hydroelectric dams.
The organization, which campaigns for transparency of global resource extraction, states that in 2014, 116 environmental and land defenders were killed—40 percent of whom were Indigenous. The report states that lack of accessible information makes that a likely conservative figure.
As one member of the Panamá community from the Bajo Aguán valley in Honduras states, according to the report: “Here the police, the military, prosecutors, judges, all of them are ready to defend the owners of the big farms, while we are the ones who are dying.”
“Environmental defenders are fighting to protect our climate against ever-increasing odds.”