E60 Environmental Action

200 environmental activists murdered in 2021: Global Witness report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ1fQgsCjFo Down To Earth Oct 4, 2022
In Cambodia, Chut Wutty, an environmental investigator and activist, was murdered while trying to halt an illegal logging operation.
In the western Mexico state of Jalisco, José Santos Isaac Chávez was killed after running for local office opposing a long-running mine.
In April 2021, Sandra Liliana Peña Chocué, an Indigenous governor in southwest Colombia, who had fought for the eradication of coca crops in Caldono, was killed near her home by armed men.
Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing the added threat of oil and gas extraction. One of the 8 rangers of the park, Joannah Stutchbury was shot outside her home in Kenya.
In June this year, journalist Dom Phillips, who wrote extensively for the Guardian and the Observer, and Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian expert on uncontacted tribes, were murdered in the Javari valley in Brazil’s Amazon after going missing.
According to Global Witness’ report titled ‘Decade of Defiance’, 1733 activists were killed between 2012 and 2021. 227 of them were killed in the year 2020. This is the highest number of killings in a year, despite the pandemic. Last year, 200 environmental defenders were murdered. Nearly 4 people a week!
Out of the 200, 14 were Indians. This includes three tribals – Kawasi Waga, Uika Pandu, and Korsa – who were allegedly shot dead by security forces, ironically, during a protest against a security force camp in the Silger village in Chhattisgarh. In Assam, 32-year-old Moynal Haque and 12-year-old Sheikh Farid were shot dead by armed police during the eviction-related violence in Dhalpur village. Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest from Jharkhand, was among 16 renowned activists, academics and lawyers who were charged under a draconian anti-terror law in what came to be known as the Bhima Koregaon case. He was suffering from Parkinson’s disease while in custody and died there itself. Vrinda Grover, a Supreme Court lawyer, said Swamy's death was "designed to happen". Others include RTI activists Vipin Agarwal, T Sridhar and Venkatesh S.
Mexico recorded the highest number of killings, with 54 killings in 2021. Over 40% of those killed were indigenous people. Whilst Brazil and India both saw a rise in lethal attacks from 20 to 26, and from 4 to 14 respectively, both Colombia and the Philippines saw a drop in killings. Yet overall they remain two of the countries with the highest numbers of killings in the world since 2012.(MAP) Over three-quarters of the attacks recorded took place in Latin America. In Brazil, Peru and Venezuela, 78% of attacks took place in the Amazon. Global Witness documented 10 killings in Africa. Where a sector could be identified, just over a quarter of lethal attacks were reportedly linked to resource exploitation – logging, mining and large-scale agribusiness – and hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure.
According to activist and author Dr. Vandana Shiva, these defenders are putting themselves in danger by confronting a viewpoint that sees nature as something not to be cherished and protected, but to be conquered and subdued. This is a viewpoint with its roots in the Western industrial revolutions of the 19th century, or even further back in the scientific theory of the Western so-called ‘Enlightenment’. It matters that this viewpoint originated in the West. As this report shows, nearly all of the murdered environmental and land defenders are from the Global South, and yet it is not the Global South that reaps the supposed economic ‘rewards’ of all this violence.