Being an environmentalist is still dangerous

From a young age, you feel love for nature and defend it. Suddenly, someone thinks of development, someone sees nature as an investment opportunity and we become its enemies.

Since the last decades of the 20th century, we became aware that our environmental struggles were dangerous, as we were the target of disqualification campaigns, police actions and judicial accusations. Sometimes we received threats of aggression and even threats for our lives.

And we have been told that we are exaggerating, that we are "victimizing". But the developer has no limits and wants his investment at any cost and lethality turn the environmentalist into a dangerous activity. We never forget when this reality was revealed to us intensely when Chico Mendes was assassinated, close to our country, in the Brazilian Amazon. We mourned him without knowing him personally. In the same way we have mourned all those murdered for being environmental defenders.

A British international organization, Gobal Witness, a self-described defender of the human rights of environmental activists, keeps records of attacks, threats, criminalization and legal proceedings, attempted or completed assassinations. Through Mogbay's publications, we had access to the results published by Global Witness.

The English international organization indicates that in 2020, despite the pandemic, aggression against the environmental movement increased, assuring that the past year has been the "most violent and lethal" of all historical records.

It is evident because Global Witness publications, in 2019, unfortunately, killed two hundred and twelve environmentalists. By 2020, there were two hundred and twenty-seven victims (almost seven percent higher than 2019). It seems that lethal actions were unleashed under the constraints due to the pandemic.

In terms of geographic discrimination, Global Witness reports that three quarters of those killed belong to Latin America (three out of four murders). According to the records of this organization, it was serious to be an environmentalist in Colombia (sixty-five murders), Mexico (thirty murders), Brazil (twenty murders), Honduras (seventeen murders), Guatemala (thirteen murders), Nicaragua (twelve murders) and Peru (six murders).

It is hard to know that our brother and neighboring country, Colombia sadly leads the figures for the second consecutive year with sixty-five environmental defenders who were murdered in 2020. South America sadly leads with the figures of Colombia, Brazil and Peru has a regrettable participation with ninety-one deaths at the hands of environmental criminals. Central America exhibits a lamentable figure of forty-two murdered for being environmentalists.

Environmental education is fundamental in the prevention of violence against environmentalists. Keeping environmental values and concepts in mind as a fundamental part of our lives prevents aggression against nature and its defenders.