"A new report found that environmental defenders are increasingly encountering overlapping networks of government officials, corporations, criminal groups and private security forces."
"Environmental and Indigenous rights defenders remained among the world’s most targeted human rights advocates in 2025, despite landmark rulings by international courts affirming governments’ obligations to protect both the environment and those who defend it.
At least 358 human rights defenders were killed last year, according to a report released last week by Front Line Defenders, a Dublin-based group that provides support for global human rights activists.
Nearly a quarter, 84, were targeted because of their often unpaid work protecting land and the environment. Those killings were documented in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Peru, Philippines, Turkey, Somalia and Palestine.
Indigenous-rights defenders—often working on environmental issues but tracked separately from environmental defenders—accounted for another 17 percent of the killings documented by the group."
