Since 2012, over 2,000 environmental defenders have been killed for standing up against projects that put land, water, and local communities at risk. In 2023 alone, 196 people died: 79 in Colombia, 25 in Brazil, 18 in Mexico, and another 18 in Honduras. Indigenous peoples, about 6% of the global population, accounted for 43% of the victims. The pattern suggests a systemic problem, tied to corporate interests, armed groups, organised crime, and often, state inaction.
Corporate exploitation and targeted violence
Mining, logging, and agribusiness corporations sit at the heart of many of these conflicts. They encroach upon Indigenous territories and protected areas to extract resources, and when communities resist, violence usually follows.
In Honduras, the 2024 assassination of Juan López underscored this deadly entanglement. López had been campaigning against an iron oxide mining project involving companies like Inversiones Los Pinares and Inversiones Ecotek, notorious for environmental violations. His death was not an isolated incident but a symptom of how corporate interests intersect with local political corruption to create a lethal environment for activists.
PBI Canada reports: In Mexico’s Chiapas region, similar patterns played out. Carmen López Lugo, an Indigenous environmental activist, was murdered in 2024 amid territorial disputes over resource-rich lands. The Chiapas conflict shows how corporate interests, criminal organisations, and local power struggles converge to endanger defenders. Mining is consistently the deadliest industry for environmental activists, with Indigenous and peasant leaders in Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico disproportionately at risk. (And yes, mining companies will deny everything while quietly lobbying politicians.)
Armed groups and organised crime
Violence against environmental defenders is not limited to corporate actors. Armed groups and organised crime syndicates often exploit the very same resource-rich territories.
In Colombia, despite peace agreements with FARC, dissident armed factions continue to dominate mineral- and agriculture-rich regions. These groups target activists opposing their control, ensuring both territorial dominance and financial gain, and making daily life for any local activist a high-stakes gamble.
In Venezuela, the Uwottüja Indigenous community along the Orinoco Medio River faced violent incursions from dissident FARC elements and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in search of precious metals. Virgilio Trujillo Arana, a local community guard who resisted these incursions, was murdered in 2022. These cases show that environmental activism here intersects directly with organised crime, creating a landscape where defenders are under constant threat. (Not that anyone in Caracas seems especially alarmed.)
State complicity and impunity
State actors, whether through action, or more often inaction, frequently enable violence against defenders. In Honduras, the murder of Berta Cáceres in 2016, an activist opposing the Agua Zarca Dam, exposed how corporate projects can operate with military and political backing. Similarly, in Mexico, Carmen López Lugo was killed by perpetrators wielding military-grade weapons, showing how state resources can become instruments of terror, according to Amnesty International.
Even international frameworks like the Escazú Agreement, designed to protect environmental defenders in Latin America, are hampered by slow ratification and weak enforcement. Impunity is endemic: perpetrators operate with minimal fear of consequences, emboldened by structural failures in legal and political systems. (In other words, “justice” is optional.)
A lethal ecosystem
Corporations, criminal organisations, armed groups, and state actors form a mutually reinforcing ecosystem. Corporations rely on armed groups to secure territories. Criminal organisations profit from resource extraction. States may turn a blind eye or actively support these operations. The result: a perilous landscape where environmental defenders face threats from multiple directions.
This ecosystem thrives on resource competition, criminalisation of activism, and impunity. Communities who resist exploitation are not only challenging profit-driven interests but are confronting a tangled web of violence where multiple actors are complicit in a system with a common incentive to silence them. (Think of it as a circus where the clowns are heavily armed and the ringmaster is asleep.)
Conclusion
The deaths of environmental defenders are neither random nor isolated. They reveal a global system where corporate greed, criminality, armed power, and political complicity converge to make environmental protection a dangerous act. Indigenous and local communities are disproportionately affected, yet international protections remain fragile.
To prevent further deaths, we need resilient legal frameworks, genuine corporate accountability, international pressure, and steadfast support for those on the frontlines. Environmental advocacy should never be a death sentence, but without systemic change, the lethal cost of defending our planet will keep climbing. (And let us not pretend that small gestures, like a press release or candlelight vigil, are enough.)