Attacks on defenders increase

[orthoclad]

"Environmental defenders reel from Mexico and Central America attacks"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/10/environmental-defenders-mexico-central-america-attacks

At least two dozen defenders have been murdered, disappeared and jailed across the region so far this year, according to research by the Guardian. On Wednesday, the Indigenous rights and anti-mining activist Eustacio Alcalá Díaz was found dead in Michoacán, Mexico, three days after he was abducted by armed men while traveling with Catholic missionaries.

Díaz, who spearheaded a legal campaign to stop a transnational mining company – and won – was the ninth defender murdered or disappeared in Mexico so far this year.

Across the region, others have been harassed, threatened and criminally charged in retaliation for opposing land and water grabs linked to mining, dams and industrial agriculture, cementing the region’s ranking as one of the world’s most perilous for environmental and land rights defenders.

While the specific context of the repression varies from country to country, experts say a toxic mix of impunity, corruption and organised crime have permitted – and even encouraged – the imposition of extractive industries such as mining, energy and plantation crops in areas where communities depend on the land and water sources to thrive.

While the US has had its first killing of an environmental defender in Georgia, the attacks on defenders in Latin America have accelerated.