'Simply Unacceptable': Nearly 200 Environmental Defenders Killed in 2023

Almost 200 people were killed in 2023 for attempting to protect their lands and communities from ecological devastation, Global Witness revealed Tuesday.

This raises the total number of environmental defenders killed between 2012—when Global Witness began publishing its annual reports—and 2023 to 2,106.

"As the climate crisis accelerates, those who use their voice to courageously defend our planet are met with violence, intimidation, and murder," Laura Furones, the report's lead author and senior adviser to the Land and Environmental Defenders Campaign at Global Witness, said in a statement. "Our data shows that the number of killings remains alarmingly high, a situation that is simply unacceptable."

At least 196 people were murdered in 2023, 79 of them in Colombia, which was both the deadliest country for defenders last year and the deadliest overall. In 2023, more defenders were killed in Colombia than have ever been killed in one country in a given year since Global Witness began its calculations.

While the government of left-wing President Gustavo Petro has promised to protect activists, organizers on the ground say the situation has only gotten worse for defenders in the past year. Colombia will host the 16th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October, and has promised to highlight the role of defenders in protecting nature. This presents a "historic opportunity" to stand up for the rights of environmental activists, Global Witness said.

Overall, Latin America is the deadliest region for defenders, making up 85% of killings in 2023. It was home to the four deadliest countries for defenders—Colombia, Brazil, Honduras, and Mexico—which together accounted for 70% of all killings. Honduras also saw the highest number of killings per capita, both in 2023 and over the past 11 years.

"It is the job of leaders to listen and make sure that defenders can speak out without risk."

The fifth deadliest country for defenders in 2023 was the Philippines, which saw 17 people killed. Overall, nearly 500 people have been murdered in Asia since 2012, with the Philippines remaining the deadliest country in the region during that time. Global Witness recorded four deaths in Africa in 2023, and 116 since 2012, but noted that this is likely a "gross underestimate" as killings on the continent are more difficult to document due to a lack of information.

Global Witness cannot always link a particular industry to the murders of the land defenders who oppose environmental harm. In Colombia, for example, it estimates that half of people killed in 2023 were killed by organized criminal elements. However, for the deaths it was able to connect, most people died after opposing mining operations at 25. This was followed by logging (5), fishing (5), agribusiness (4), roads and infrastructure (4), and hydropower (2).

The threat of even more mining-related violence looms as nations scramble for the critical minerals necessary for the transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable forms of energy. This dovetails with another component of Global Witness' findings: the disproportionate violence borne by Indigenous communities for defending their homes. Of the defenders killed in 2023, nearly half were Indigenous peoples or Afrodescendants, and almost half of the minerals needed for the energy transition are located on or near Indigenous or peasant land.

Jenifer Lasimbang, an Indigenous Orang Asal woman from Malaysia and executive director of Indigenous Peoples of Asia Solidarity Fund, explained the situation her community faces:

In Malaysia, as in many other countries, we Indigenous Peoples have been subject to wave after wave of destruction. First came the logging and oil palm companies. As a result, nearly 80% of the land surface in Malaysian Borneo has been cleared or severely damaged.

Now, as the world moves away from a fossil-fuel based economy, we're seeing a rush for critical minerals, essential to succeed in the transition to a green economy.

With Malaysia the regional leader in aluminium, iron and manganese production, extracting rare minerals isn't new to us. But our experience so far has been that this comes at a huge environmental cost.

The Malaysian government is issuing an increasing number of prospecting and mining licenses. We know what this new "green rush" means for us. We know it's going to get worse while demand for resources remains high.

Lasimbang said that her community did not oppose development itself, but an "unsustainable and unequal global system" predicated on ever-increasing consumption, and that world leaders should learn from Indigenous communities like hers how to sustain a society without destroying the environment.

"There is only really one thing left to say: Trust us. Let us lead. We will take you with us," Lasimbang said.

While global awareness of the climate crisis and commitments to address it should have translated into greater protections for those on the frontlines of defending biodiversity, that has not been the case. Since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, at least 1,500 defenders have been murdered, Global Witness said.

Even in wealthier countries like the U.K., E.U., and U.S. where killings are less frequent, governments have increasingly repressed environmental activists by criminalizing protest. In 2023, Global Witness observed that the "global surge in anti-protest legislation persisted."

For example, in 2023 the U.K. expanded its Public Order Act to allow police to prosecute certain protests that disrupted national infrastructure or caused "more than a minor" disturbance. In November of that year, police arrested at least 630 people for marching slowly on a public road to protest new fossil fuel projects.

In the U.S., more than 20 states have passed "critical infrastructure" laws that target protests against fossil fuel projects like pipelines. E.U. countries have passed similar laws as well.

Even in the developed world, the criminalization of protest can turn deadly: In January 2023, police in Georgia shot and killed 26-year-old defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, or Tortuguita, as they were camping out in a local forest to prevent it from being bulldozed to facilitate the construction of a "Cop City" training facility.

To protect defenders worldwide, Global Witness called on governments and businesses to document attacks and hold perpetrators to account.

"Governments cannot stand idly by; they must take decisive action to protect defenders and to address the underlying drivers of violence against them," Furones said. "Activists and their communities are essential in efforts to prevent and remedy harms caused by climate damaging industries. We cannot afford to, nor should we tolerate, losing any more lives."

Nonhle Mbuthuma of South Africa, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2024, wrote in the report's forward that both defenders and governments had a role to play in creating a more just and sustainable world as it teeters on the brink of climate and ecological breakdown.

"Now it is my role, as a defender, to push elite power to take radical action that swings us away from fossil fuels and toward systems that benefit the whole of society," Mbuthuma wrote. "It is the job of leaders to listen and make sure that defenders can speak out without risk. This is the responsibility of all wealthy and resource-rich countries across the planet."