Environment defenders & civil societies key to halting biodiversity loss but face violence, neglect https://www.downtoearth.org.in/environment/ipbes-transformative-change-report-environment-defenders-civil-societies-key-to-halting-biodiversity-loss-but-face-violence-neglect - a Transformative Change report published December 18, 2024 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).The analysis examined 2,802 social mobilisations from 1992 to 2023, which challenged 46,955 environmental threats over biodiversity loss, soil contamination, climate change, groundwater, surface water and landscape degradation, waste overflow and deforestation.
While 54 per cent of these actions achieved reforms — such as technical solutions, environmental improvements and compensations — nearly 27 per cent resulted in regressive outcomes, including violence against defenders and underreported and overlooked gender-based violence.
Between 2012 and 2022, over 2,000 environmental defenders, including journalists, were killed for opposing environmentally destructive activities like mining, dam construction and deforestation, the paper said.
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