Liquidating Environmental Defenders is Liquidating Ability to Mitigate Climate Change

Last Saturday, gunmen killed Juan Lopez, a forty-six year-old anti-mining activist in Honduras, as he left church in the northeastern town of Tocoa, not long after he called for the resignation of officials for negotiating with drug traffickers in 2013 video, a video that included Carlos Zelaya, a brother-in-law to the president.

Last November, gunmen shot dead Quinto Inuma, a 49-year-old environmental activist in Peru, over his campaign to halt illegal logging on the land of the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu indigenous community in the Amazon region, with logging executive Segundo Villalobo allegedly paying the assassin 1,000 soles ($260) for the job.

In 2022, assassins murdered David Cucuname, a 24-year-old indigenous activist in Colombia, as he accompanied his father on a security patrol to protect the community land of Las Delicas in the nation's Cauca Department, with dissidents of the now-demobilized rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia blamed for it.

Apart from Honduras, Peru, and Colombia, gunmen kill environmental activists around the world in increasing numbers, with an estimated 196 land and environmental defenders liquidated around the world in 2023, the figure between 2012 and 2020 put at 2,106, Colombia having the highest number of killings worldwide at 79 in 2023.

Lopez belonged to the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods, an environmental organization in Tocoa in Honduras's Atlantic coast, but assailants threatened the group for trying to preserve the areas around Guapinol and San Pedro rivers, as well as the Carlos Escaleras nature reserve, which has 967.55 square kilometers of pristine land.

Inuma operated as one of the leaders of the Kichwa community, which battled to defend its share of the rainforest, but hooded attackers ambushed Inuwa, after he addressed a meeting of women environmental campaigners over Peru's Amazon forest, about 782,880 square kilometers in size.

Cucuname worked with the unarmed Indigenous Guard, a group that fought to protect their land from intrusion by Colombia's many armed groups, but other ideas occupied the minds of members the armed groups, who wanted to dominate Colombia' forests, about 59.1 million hectares in size,  almost all of them primary or naturally regenerated forests.

In other words, gunmen around the world kill environmental activists in greater numbers, because among other reasons, they want to institutionalize bribery in their operations, murder anyone who opposes them in their attempts to control places such as the Amazon forest, as well as liquidate activists who want to protect primary and regenerated forests.

The forest loss of Colombia decreased by 54 percent between 2021 and 2023, well above the national target of 20 percent, meaning the country still needs more people like Cucuname to protect the primary forest, especially as deforestation accelerates climate change, which worries the authorities in Colombia.

The forest loss in Honduras accelerated between 2001 and 2019, with the country losing more than 37 percent of its forest cover, implying that the nation requires the services of environmental defenders like Lopez, especially as the activities of miners accelerate climate change in the country.

The forest loss in Peru increased between 2001 and 2020, with 3.4 million hectares  gone within the period, a situation that justified the activities of defenders like Inuwa, who knew deforestation worsened the effects of climate change.

Put simply, the killings of activists on a worldwide basis comes at a considerable cost, as climate change effects stand at the risk of increasing, since the loss of defenders means increased deforestation, emissions of greenhouse gasses, as well as the destruction to the environment.

As the number of environmental defenders killed rises, governments must investigate reasons behind the murders, ensure justice takes place over intimidation of environmental defenders, and make companies implement operations that halt environmental abuses in their activities.

What to Eat

Vegan food from Honduras, Credit, Fusioncraftiness.com