GNV News 9/20/2025

On 9/17/2025, a report by the international NGO Global Witness revealed that at least 146 people（※） who defend land, forests, rivers, and other environments were killed or disappeared in 2024. This brings the cumulative total since 2012 to 2,254 people killed or disappeared.

In 2024, 82% of such cases were recorded in Latin America; by country, Colombia had the most with 48 cases, followed by Guatemala with 20, and Mexico with 19. In more than half of these countries, civic freedoms are restricted, including limits on defenders’ rights to association and peaceful assembly. Of the 146 people who were killed or disappeared, about 1/3 are Indigenous peoples or people of African descent, mainly living in Latin America, and another 1/3 are primarily smallholder farmers.

The report notes that the vast majority of those defenders did not choose to become activists; they were compelled to act as their lives and livelihoods came under threat. Behind this are land-use changes driven by mining and extraction, logging, plantation expansion, road building, and hydropower dam construction. Of those who opposed such activities and were killed or disappeared, about 1/3 are said to have been targeted by criminal organizations financed by illegal land development and resource extraction. In addition to criminal groups, there were also 17 cases of killings by state actors such as the police, and defenders have faced non-lethal reprisals as well. Because criminal organizations, governments, and companies often collude over shared interests, investigations into perpetrators are complicated, and punishment tends to fall on direct assailants rather than on those who planned the attacks.

With the 30th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) scheduled for November 2025, it is strongly urged that the world reacknowledge the vital role defenders play in the sustainable stewardship of land, and that states and companies alike strengthen legal frameworks and ensure accountability to guarantee respect for and remedies for the rights of land and environmental defenders.

（※）142 killings, 4 disappearances

Learn more about the killings of environmental defenders in Latin America → “Latin America: Environmental Defenders Under Threat”

Patilla Pit, an open-pit mining area in northern Colombia (Photo: Hour.poing / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 3.0])