Eco-Activists Are Getting Murdered

By FRANK LINGO

In general, the news media has done a much better job of reporting important environmental stories in the last few years. But one critical story has been barely noticed – the murders of eco-activists for their work of protecting the planet.

Global Witness, a watch group advocating climate justice and human rights, released their latest report on Sept. 13, detailing the murders of 177 Earth defenders in 2022. That’s almost one killing every two days. Global Witness notes that the names of many defenders who were killed last year may be missing from the list.

Grist.org and Mother Jones are at least two news sites that covered the report, but it got little TV coverage, which is where many people get their news. A quick internet search revealed no coverage of the report in the Washington Post or the New York Times, although the Times covered last year’s report. You can bank on the bankers’ bible, the Wall Street Journal, to make zero effort with stories that prefer planet over profit.

The vast majority of the murdered defenders lived in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Most of the killings in Colombia and Brazil were committed on advocates of the Amazon, sometimes called the lungs of the world. A whopping 36% of the killings worldwide were of indigenous peoples. In addition, non-lethal suppression has increased, including criminalization of eco-activism and harassment of defenders.

A hopeful sign in Colombia, which led the world with 60 killings, is the 2022 election of a liberal president who has promised social transformation and enhanced protection for eco-defenders.

A similar hope has emerged in Brazil where the new president claims to be a climate progressive and actually reduced the deforestation levels in his first year. This was a big improvement over his Trump-like predecessor who merrily carried out the raping of the rainforest.

After Mexico had the detestable distinction of leading the world in killings for 2021, it dropped to third in 2022. But a country that is at least partly controlled by cartels is unlikely to clean up its corruption any time soon.

Global Witness said it’s difficult to attribute the world’s killings to specific driving forces, but they were able to link at least 10 to agribusiness, eight to mining and four to logging. A particularly cruel statistic is that at least five children fell victim to the killers.

In March 2020, Global Witness released an article to explain the role of the world’s banks in deforestation. They bankroll Big Ag’s bulldozing of trees to make room for cattle grazing, as if the appetite for animals is worth destroying the ecosystem that generates our oxygen. So that’s yet another reason to eat less meat or go vegetarian, as I did in 1989. (By the way, being a vegetarian is easy these days. There are a bunch of tasty meat substitutes available at restaurants and grocery stores.)

Here’s how bad the deforestation has become: The Guardian reported that since 1988 the Amazon has lost 10,000 acres of rainforest PER DAY! Over the past 35 years, that totals up to an area larger than California.

But you know what? Banks actually care about their public image. That’s why they run TV ads all the time trying to show how human and caring they are. Let’s let the banks know that we value the human lives and planet protection that they are wasting. Maybe that will make their actions match their ad illusions.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2023

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