Since 2012, over two thousand environmental defenders have been killed globally for the simple act of standing up to those who would destroy their land, water, and communities. In 2023 alone, 196 defenders were killed, with Colombia leading at 79 deaths, followed by Brazil (25), Mexico (18), and Honduras (18). Indigenous peoples, who make up just 6% of the global population, accounted for 43% of these victims. This isn’t a coincidence; it is a systemic crisis fueled by corporate greed, organized crime, armed groups, and state complicity.
Corporate exploitation and targeted violence
Corporations in mining, logging, and agribusiness are at the heart of many of these conflicts. They encroach upon Indigenous territories and protected areas to extract resources, and when communities resist, violence often follows.
In Honduras, the 2024 assassination of Juan López underscored this deadly entanglement. López had been campaigning against an iron oxide mining project, which involved 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 can intersect with local political corruption to create a lethal environment for activists.
PBI Canada reports: In Mexico’s Chiapas region, similar patterns emerged. Carmen López Lugo, an Indigenous environmental activist, was murdered in 2024 amid territorial disputes over resource-rich lands. The conflict in Chiapas illustrates how corporate interests, criminal organizations, and local power struggles converge to endanger defenders. Mining remains the deadliest industry for environmental activists, and opposition to such projects in Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico consistently makes Indigenous and peasant leaders prime targets.
Armed groups and organised crime
Violence against environmental defenders is not limited to corporate action. Armed groups and organized crime syndicates often exploit the same resource-rich territories.
In Colombia, despite peace agreements with FARC, dissident armed factions continue to dominate regions rich in minerals and agricultural resources. These groups target activists opposing their control, ensuring both territorial dominance and financial gain.
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 demonstrate that environmental activism in such regions intersects directly with organized crime, creating a landscape where defenders are constantly at risk.
State complicity and impunity
Adding another layer of danger, state actors—sometimes through action, often through inaction—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 using military-grade weapons, showing how state resources may become instruments of terror, reports Amnesty International.
Even with international frameworks like the Escazú Agreement, designed to protect environmental defenders in Latin America, slow ratification and weak enforcement leave many exposed. Impunity is endemic: perpetrators operate with minimal fear of consequences, emboldened by the structural failures of legal and political systems.
A lethal ecosystem
These forces—corporations, criminal organisations, armed groups, and state actors—function within a mutually reinforcing ecosystem. Corporations depend on armed groups to secure territories. Criminal organisations profit from resource extraction. State actors may turn a blind eye or directly support these operations. The result is a perilous landscape in which environmental defenders are attacked from multiple directions.
This ecosystem thrives on resource competition, criminalization of activism, and impunity. Communities who resist exploitation are not only challenging profit-driven interests but also confronting an intricate web of violence where multiple actors have aligned incentives to silence them.
Conclusion
The deaths of environmental defenders are neither random nor isolated. They reveal a global system in which 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, there is a need for robust legal frameworks, corporate accountability, international pressure, and unwavering support for those standing at the frontlines. Environmental advocacy should never be a death sentence—but without systemic change, the lethal cost of defending our planet will continue to climb.