Violence Against Environmental Activists

Over the past decade, thousands of indigenous land rights activists and community environmental leaders have been assassinated, with many thousands more facing violent threats. This occurs at a global scale, spanning dozens of countries. Particularly severe violence against environmental activists has been documented in Honduras, Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines; however, many Latin American and Asian countries have witnessed at least moderate levels of violence.

Shockingly, we still know very little about the logic of this violence, its political and environmental effects, and its role in shaping environmental advocacy patterns across the globe.  While a handful of human rights organizations and environmental NGOs have attempted to highlight the importance of this issue, data on the scale of violence is limited and there has been little substantive academic study of this tragedy

ENVENT lab members are currently engaged in a long-term research project to:

  1.  document the full scale of violence against environmental activists
  2.  study for the first time the effects of this violence on environmental outcomes
  3.  draw attention to this unfolding tragedy in educational curricula at university and high school levels.