Honduras is world’s number one for killing environmental activists
Honduras is world’s number one for killing environmental activists
Report by NGO Global Witness finds that globally people are being killed “in record numbers” defending land and the environment
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Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, one of this year’s winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Photograph:
Goldman Prize
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More people were killed in Honduras per capita than any other country for each of the last five years as a result of their efforts to defend land and the environment, according to a report by UK-based NGO Global Witness.
The report, How many more?, alleges that people are being “killed in record numbers” and that this is happening in response to “increased competition over natural resources” - particularly from hydropower projects, agribusiness, logging and mining and other extractive industries. It states:
These deaths occur because ordinary citizens and local communities are increasingly finding themselves at the forefront of the battle over the planet’s natural resources. . . At the same time, national governments are failing to protect their rights from rising threats from agribusiness, mining, logging and hydropower projects.
How many more? finds that 116 “land and environmental defenders”, or “Dead Friends of the Earth”, a term Global Witness used in a previous publication, were killed last year. Three quarters were in Central and South America: 29 people were killed in Brazil, 25 in Colombia, 15 in the Philippines, 12 in Honduras, 9 in Peru and 5 in Guatemala, with other killings recorded in another 11 countries.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2015/apr/22/honduras-worlds-number-one-killing-environmental-activists