UN human rights representative Juliette De Rivero says COP16 is “an opportunity to improve the protection of environmental defenders”
Video: Juliette De Rivero presents the main concerns about the situation of environmental defenders in Colombia ahead of COP16.
The Spanish news agency EFE reports: “The COP16 [biodiversity summit] in Colombia [taking place October 21 to November 1] is ‘an opportunity to improve the protection of environmental defenders’, says the representative in the country of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Juliette De Rivero, after a United Nations report revealed that since 2016 248 Colombian environmental leaders have been murdered.”
De Rivero tells EFE: “We are very concerned that 248 environmental defenders have been murdered from 2016 to September of this year… The coordination of the State has to be greatly improved to protect environmental defenders and, in particular, indigenous defenders, Afro and peasant communities” since they represent 89% of the murders.
The situation is worsening. The UN report notes that 14 environmental defenders were killed in 2016, while 44 were killed in 2023.
The EFE article adds: “De Rivero believes that ‘for the first time at this COP we will try to focus the discussion on the protection of human rights and environmentalists’ and stressed that it is the perfect time to ‘begin to make visible these struggles, which need the support of the international community’.”
The UN report on Colombia can be read here.
Further reading: COP16: 248 defensores del medio ambiente han sido asesinados desde 2016 (RCN Radio) and A pocos días de la COP16, Naciones Unidas reveló alarmante cifra de líderes ambientales asesinados en Colombia: el 56% de los casos ocurre en el Pacífico (Infobae).
WEBINAR, October 24
Join us on Thursday October 24 at 12 pm (Colombia) / 1 pm (Ottawa) / 7 pm (Geneva) for a webinar that will link the protection needs of environmental defenders and the upcoming United Nations COP16 Biodiversity, COP29 Climate and Binding Treaty talks.
To register, please click here.
In its assessment of COP28 in December 2023, Global Witness noted: “Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, we documented the killings of at least 1,390 land and environmental defenders. And yet, there is not a single reference to land and environmental defenders in the final text.”
This one-hour webinar with simultaneous translation will feature Cali, Colombia-based Berenice Celeita of the Association for Social Research and Action (Nomadesc), Washington, DC-based Javier Garate of Global Witness, and Geneva-based Yannick Wild of Peace Brigades International-Switzerland.
It now appears possible that Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, may be able to join this webinar to make introductory comments on the need for protection measures.
Further reading: PBI-Canada to host webinar on COP16, COP29, the Binding Treaty and the language needed to protect environmental defenders.
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