Environmental Defenders

In August this year, the owners of two fincas in the Gualivá province of Cundinamarca, just outside of Bogota, were sent expropriation orders by...

Edivan Guajajara is a filmmaker and activist from the Arariboia Indigenous Land whose work centres on the natural world and Indigenous struggle. He has come together with Chelsea Greene and Rob Grobman from One Forest in the documentary We Are Guardians, released this year, to tell the story of Indigenous struggle against illegal encroachments in the Amazon.

LAB speaks to Natalia Greene, who was instrumental in bringing the Rights of Nature into Ecuador’s Constitution in 2008, about the environmental movement in Ecuador, the complexities of the current political situation and deteriorating security.

Indigenous communities in Azuay, Ecuador, are fighting Canadian gold mining company Dundee Precious Metals, whose Loma Larga mine threatens to pollute the Kimsakocha moorlands and its rivers.

Ecuadorians go to the polls on 20 August 2023, to elect both a new president and 137 legislators for the country's National Assembly. They will also be given the choice to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in a referendum, where a ‘Yes’ vote will shut down all oil extraction in Yasuní National Park.

When large mining companies such as TerraEarth withdrew from gold mining in Ecuador's Napo province, they paved the way for smaller scale illegal miners to move in in force, financed by cocaine money, with terrible consequences

Chinese owned TerraEarth started mining for gold in Ecuador's Napo province. After numerous instances of pollution of water sources, encroachments and other violations, court and regulatory action eventually forced the company to withdraw -- for now.

Pedro Pinto, 67, has spent over half his life defending the environment in the western region of Ocotepeque, Honduras. In November 2022, two of his vehicles were burned by an unknown party, he suspects that they were enemies of his work as an environmental defender.

A Twitter campaign smearing the reputation of environmental activists in Honduras is a coordinated effort to protect mining interests.

In January, four social activists were murdered in Honduras within a period of 11 days. The deaths of two environmental defenders from Guapinol were followed by the murder of a peasant leader and his father-in-law.