Latin America accounts for 85 percent of documented defender deaths
Colombia, Brazil and Honduras together accounted for more than three-fifths of last year’s global total of 124 killings of nature and land defenders. The independent watchdog Global Witness published the figures in its annual death toll, attributing much of the violence to organized crime and narco-trafficking operations that have pushed into Indigenous territories and environmental-crime sites such as illegal logging operations and wildcat gold mines.
The headline figure has declined for two consecutive years, from 196 in 2023 and 142 in 2024 to 124 last year. Global Witness cautioned that the drop is likely an underestimate, noting that data collection is difficult in war zones and in countries with restricted civic space, according to the report. Since the watchdog began compiling statistics in 2012, the cumulative global tally has reached 2,375 deaths and disappearances — what the report describes as a toll on a par with a small-scale war.
Organized crime groups or professional killers were implicated in more than a third of the 124 killings. The report found that narco-trafficking overlaps increasingly with intrusions into Indigenous territories and environmental crime, including illegal logging and illegal gold mining. Almost three-quarters of those killed were Indigenous people and small-scale farmers targeted for defending their land.
Many countries and companies are also carrying out nonlethal attacks on defenders, including criminalization and online smear campaigns, according to the report.
With international support shrinking, an increasing number of Indigenous communities are establishing their own territorial defense mechanisms. The report highlights the Kakataibo Indigenous Guard in the Peruvian Amazon, which has lost six of its leaders to killings since 2020 amid incursions by criminal groups. The guard, which began in 2022 with a few dozen recruits, now operates more than 150 volunteers across 10 bases.
“Defending our territory is important to us as a community and as a people, and we’re proud to support the climate that we all depend on. In our culture, the work of defending our resources and territory is taught from an early age. But for this next generation coming up, the work is more dangerous than ever,” said Segundo Ispón, the commander of the Kakataibo Indigenous Guard.
At least a dozen other communities in Peru have organized similar self-defense units. Such bodies have also existed for years in Colombia and Brazil. The work carries lethal risks: seven Indigenous guards were murdered worldwide last year, and in at least five of those cases the killings were linked to organized crime.
In the Ucayali basin on the Peruvian side of the border with Brazil, Global Witness reported a 600 percent increase in coca production between 2019 and 2023. The growth is pushing gangs to expand smuggling networks, including through the opening of illegal roads and trails through the forest. Corruption among police and local politicians — many of whom the report says are in the pay of traffickers — adds to the risks facing forest protectors.
Ricardo Soberón, a former head of Peru’s anti-narcotics office, said transnational criminal groups have appropriated daily life in Indigenous communities along the Putumayo basin, naming the Huitoto, Quichua, Bora and Secoya peoples. “We are in a situation where transnational criminal groups have appropriated the daily life of the Huitoto, Quichua, Bora, Secoya Indigenous people, who live along the Putumayo basin,” Soberón said.
In July, Asháninka leaders on the Brazilian side of the border with Peru petitioned the government for help after armed and masked men entered their homes, apparently in search of assassination targets. Soberón said threats against local leaders, environmental defenders and human rights activists who call for a more effective state presence are of particular concern.
Many defenders are now exposed to more organized crime with less assistance from the international community, partly as a result of cuts by the Trump administration, the report said. The report cites the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which previously supported initiatives enabling Indigenous peoples to steward their own land, as having serious implications for defenders. “The dismantling of USAID, which previously supported initiatives for Indigenous peoples to steward their own land, has had serious implications for defenders,” the report said.
Under U.S. leadership, the report said, many right-wing governments are pursuing military operations against coca growers and drug traffickers, which is pushing narco-gangs further into remote regions and Indigenous territories. Soberón said he fears the newly elected right-wing governments in affected countries will worsen the situation by militarizing the conflict in line with the Trump administration’s “America shield” priorities.
Toby Hill, the lead author of the report, said defenders serve as the world’s monitoring presence in remote ecosystems. “Defenders are the world’s eyes and ears on the ground. It’s thanks to them that we know when ecosystems are being destroyed, where forests are being cleared or rivers polluted. We can’t forget the thousands of defenders around the world who are working every day to protect their territories and cultures under increasing pressure,” he said. Global Witness has urged authorities to respect and work with nature and land defenders rather than make their work more difficult.