NERMEEN SHAIKH: As the climate crisis intensifies across the globe, we begin today’s show looking at the targeting and killing of environmental defenders. A new report by Global Witness finds at least 196 environmental defenders were killed last year. The deadliest nation for environmentalists and activists was Colombia, where at least 79 people were killed, most of them Indigenous, Afro-Colombians and farmers. Brazil had the second-highest death toll at 25. Honduras had the most killings per capita. Meanwhile, in Asia, the Philippines is the most dangerous country for defenders. Global Witness found that about half of all Earth defenders killed in 2023 were Indigenous peoples or Afro-descendants.

AMY GOODMAN: One high-profile case featured in the report involves the forced disappearance of the Mexican Indigenous leader Antonio Díaz Valencia and the lawyer Ricardo Lagunes, who disappeared in January of 2023 after an anti-mining community meeting. Relatives of the men believe the transnational mining company Ternium was behind their abduction and possible murder. Antonio Díaz Valencia’s grandson spoke to Global Witness.

KEIVAN DÍAZ VALENCIA: [translated] It’s scary and frustrating that they don’t know. It’s like Mexico swallowed them. That’s how I put it. They just vanished. My papa has been a social activist his entire life. He is an activist for the rights of Indigenous peoples, specifically the Nahua people, to whom we belong. He is a person who is very, very loved and known throughout the region for the work he has done. He has basically given his entire life to his region. It’s what he loves the most.

ANTONIO DÍAZ VALENCIA: [translated] They claim that they need to remove some of the land, some of the vegetation, certain streams, to continue exploiting the terrain.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the voice of Mexican Indigenous leader Antonio Díaz Valencia, who was forcibly disappeared in January of last year after attending an anti-mining meeting.

The new Global Witness report also condemns the police killing of the environmental activist Manuel Esteban Terán, known as Tortuguita, during a raid on a Stop Cop City encampment in Atlanta, Georgia. Tortuguita, who was 26 years old, was shot 57 times by police bullets while peacefully protesting the multimillion-dollar police training complex. No officers have been charged in Tortuguita’s killing.

We’re joined now by Laura Furones, lead author of the new Global Witness report, “Missing voices: The violent erasure of land and environmental defenders.” She is senior adviser to the land and environmental defenders campaign at Global Witness. She’s joining us from Madrid, Spain.

Laura, welcome to Democracy Now! Why don’t you lay out your findings? As wildfires torch the planet, as people are dealing with massive floods and hurricanes, talk about those who are resisting climate change, and what’s happening to them.

LAURA FURONES: Thank you for having me.

Yes, I think you’ve laid it out really well in the introduction. Unfortunately, 2023 was yet another appalling year for those who want to protect their lands and their environment. And we recorded the killing of 196 people globally, with stark differences between regions. But this speaks very clearly to the fact that, you know, everyone’s really talking more and more, and rightly so, about the climate crisis globally, but the climate crisis is also very intrinsically linked to a human rights crisis. We’re seeing the levels of violence, that you were just describing before, being more and more prevalent around the world. And we really fear that this will intensify as the consequences of the climate crisis become more apparent.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Laura, could you explain, first of all, why you think this violence against environmental defenders is increasing, and also why Colombia has once again topped the list for the number of environmental defenders killed?

LAURA FURONES: Well, violence is, unfortunately, not seemingly going anywhere, and I think that really is linked to the fact that the climate crisis isn’t going anywhere. So we’ve got all these people who are really at the frontline of this defense really trying to protect natural resources that many others want to extract or trying to protect the lands that others want to devote to sort of large agricultural projects. You know, the demand of commodities is growing around the world, as well. So, all of that, I think, combined makes for very dangerous sort of circumstances that defenders have to work under.

And as you say, in the case of Colombia, this is particularly tragic, because, year in and year out, this is one of the countries where we record the largest number of murders. You know, Colombia topped the ranks in 2023. It also did the same in 2022. And if we look back at all of the historical data that Global Witness has gathered ever since we started recording cases in 2012, then you still see Colombia coming up as number one.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And in Colombia itself, it’s not a general population. It’s disproportionately the people who are killed are Indigenous, Afro-Colombians and farmers. Could you explain why that’s the case?

LAURA FURONES: Yes, that’s absolutely right. I mean, we’re talking about Nasa people, Nahua people, Indigenous people. Half of all of the killings in Colombia, and, in fact, half of all defenders murdered across the world, 49% globally, are Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant communities.

And obviously, this is no coincidence. These are the people who live in those areas that are better protected. We know, science tells us very clearly, that Indigenous peoples are particularly good at protecting the lands they live in. And so, you know, the decreasing number of resources, natural resources, the planet has, as we continue to extract them, are still in their lands. And they’re having to fend off all sorts of pressures to destroy the lands, to see the lands destroyed also often in the absence of the state. So, we’re talking about often very, very remote areas where defenders are — Indigenous defenders, Afro-descendant defenders are pretty much alone and are having to stand up to protect the lands and the natural resources. And it’s in that sort of standing up and confronting peacefully that they’re attacked.

AMY GOODMAN: Next month, interestingly, Colombia is hosting a major U.N. summit on — convention on biological diversity. If you can talk about who is held responsible for these killings and disappearances, and then also talk about the number two country, which is Brazil?

LAURA FURONES: Yes, I think the question around who is responsible really is one of the key questions. And unfortunately, to this day, the majority of the families whose relative defenders are murdered are asking the same question, and the answer is we don’t know. And we don’t know because of a number of reasons. One has to do with, you know, just not having enough information about what’s happened, who has committed these murders. And more specifically, one of the largest problems that, of course, defenders around the world are facing is impunity. Sadly, very, very few cases end up with a court sentence, you know, with data, with sort of research that concludes, you know, that can lead — shed some light around who has committed the crime. If we’re lucky, we might see, you know, hit men, hired assassins, who are put in jail. But it’s very, very rare. There’s only a few sort of handful of cases where the intellectual perpetrators — in other words, those who pay for the murders, those who want the defender murdered in the first place — it’s very rare that we see those cases leading to jail sentences and other sort of judicial consequences.

In the case of Colombia, I think you rightly mentioned that Colombia is hosting CBD in just over a month, in fact. And, you know, I think Colombia, precisely because it’s one of the most dangerous countries for defenders, has this fantastic opportunity to just lead the way. You know, they’re hosting this big conference. They’ve also just ratified the Escazú Agreement, which is a very, very important agreement at a regional level that, you know, is about access to information, it’s about access to justice — all these things that defenders and the relatives, the families desperately need. And in fact, the Colombian government has actually been making quite encouraging noises about the importance they give to protecting defenders, something we hadn’t seen before in the country. So we’re quite hopeful that this kind of entails serious commitments. Obviously, we’re not seeing that, however, translate into reality quite yet, and so the figures still show Colombia sort of ranking at number one, way ahead any other country around the world.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Laura, could you talk about the context in which these murders take place principally, in particular, the role of the mining industry, of deforestation? If you could just elaborate on the context? Where are these environmental defenders working? Who are the corporations? And what kinds of corporations are involved?

LAURA FURONES: Yes. So, to give you an example, you know, we’re talking about, obviously, a very broad diversity of cases. But, you know, a classic example will be one where maybe a defender in Mexico — you know, you talked about this disappearance of two Mexican defenders — so, you know, maybe a defender in Mexico or Brazil or Colombia or the Philippines might be standing up against a mining industry that’s trying to come and operate into the lands without even consulting them. You know, it’s very common that we see sort of corporate interests coming to those lands where defenders live and, you know, starting the projects and not really consulting with them. Often the very first thing defenders see is bulldozers coming into the land, and they’ve never heard of what’s going to happen to those lands. And they never see any of the benefits that the large corporations get after those extractions.

And although it’s kind of very difficult, going back to the point about impunity and lack of information and lack of just, you know, making sure that the cases go through proper investigations, it’s very difficult to establish direct links between the murder of a defender and a specific corporate sector. However, what we have been able to identify for 2023 is that mining came up as the largest corporate sector linked to defenders. And this is also true for our historical data. Mining sector is number one over the last 12 years. And, you know, other prominent sectors obviously include large agribusiness. They include logging interests. They include, you know, dams. They include all sorts of infrastructure. It’s kind of large projects that very much happen without any consultation.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Laura, before — as we begin to wrap, if you could talk about — the fact is that the report finds that Latin America is the continent which is the most dangerous for environmental defenders. But explain what’s happening in Asia and in Africa. According to the report, only two environmental defenders were killed in the DRC, but we suspect that the number is far higher. So, what is happening across these two massive continents, Africa and Asia?

LAURA FURONES: Yes, so, that’s absolutely right. Obviously, the levels of violence in Latin America are truly appalling. You know, the problem is real. And we actually are probably also underreporting in Latin America, because it’s not always easy to get — sometimes, you know, families won’t be prepared to raise concerns about attacks, because they’ll fear reprisals. And so, this is already true in Latin America, even if it already reports very high numbers of murders. But this becomes even more challenging in other contexts.

So, Africa and Asia, as you mentioned, are good examples where we’re absolutely certain that we’re chronically underreporting. And this is for a number of reasons, including the difficulties in accessing information, which are way higher in those regions, particularly in some countries in those regions. It also speaks to civic space being very highly restricted, but it also speaks to just the fear of people speaking up, you know.

And so, you mentioned DRC. DRC is a country where we have documented a number of cases, most of them actually related to the Virunga National Park. You know, no coincidence again that we’re talking about some of the most biodiverse, some of the most natural resource-rich regions or areas in the world, you know, the Congo Basin. And we’re talking about largely park rangers, so state officials, you know, people who should be — who are hired by the state, should be protected by the state, and are, even so, murdered. So, what is the hope for those who don’t have that level of protection, you know, for those Indigenous peoples, for those Afro-descendant peoples, for those small-scale farmers who are being attacked? They have very, very little hope of being helped by the state.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, finally, about the United States, included in your report. Last year, police in Atlanta fatally shot the environmental activist Manuel Esteban Terán, known as Tortuguita, during a raid on a Stop Cop City encampment in Atlanta. Tortuguita was 26 years old, struck 57 times by police bullets while peacefully protesting the multimillion-dollar police training complex, no officers charged in their killing. As we wrap up, your final comments?

LAURA FURONES: Well, I would say that, you know, it’s very easy to — it’s very easy look at this through the lens of violence happening elsewhere, you know, way in Colombia, in the Philippines, in countries that are really far away from the U.S. But the case of Tortuguita, the horrible case of Tortuguita, you know, really paints a clear picture of what’s going on. Like, the levels of violence might be different, but it’s certainly true that in Northern countries, killings might not be as high, but we can see, across the U.S., across the EU, the U.K., you know, other sort of Northern countries, how the peaceful demonstrations that are happening as the climate crisis intensifies are met with criminalizations. They’re met with threats. They’re met with other types of attacks.

So, I would really say that — I’d like to say that, you know, it’s really important that we link the two things together. You know, what happens in producer countries, whether it’s mining companies or logging companies are operating, is not dissimilar. You know, it’s linked to what happens in consumer countries. And we, you know, activists in both Global North countries and Global South countries are fighting against the same interests and being met with varying but, you know, very worrying levels of violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Laura, we want to thank you for being with us. Laura Furones is lead author of the Global Witness report, “Missing voices: The violent erasure of land and environmental defenders,” speaking to us from Madrid, Spain. We’ll link to that report.

Coming up, Western governments, including the U.S., increasingly targeting and jailing climate activists as the climate catastrophe gets ever worse across the globe. Back in 20 seconds.