Can the UN COP16 conference in Colombia help save the lives of frontline environmental defenders?
Webinar speakers: Michel Forst, Yannick Wild, Berenice Celeita, Javier Garate.
In his opening message today to the United Nations COP16 biodiversity conference in Colombia, UN Secretary General António Guterres said: “Our task at this COP is to move from words to deeds.”
Those words, to be further negotiated at COP16, have included the pledge of “the full protection of environmental human rights defenders.”
Can a UN process help save the lives of frontline defenders?
Join us on THURSDAY OCTOBER 24 at 1 pm ET for a one-hour webinar with a UN Special Rapporteur and expert speakers – with simultaneous English-Spanish interpretation – that will examine this fundamental question.
Register now here.
Global Witness has estimated the 196 land and environmental defenders were killed around the world in 2023, a record 79 of them were killed in Colombia, the country hosting the COP16 meeting.
And with a UN report released last week that says 248 Colombian environmental leaders have been murdered since 2016, Juliette De Rivero, the UN’s human rights representative in Colombia, commented that COP16 is “an opportunity to improve the protection of environmental defenders.”
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s London, UK-based Secretary General, has further commented: “Environmental rights defenders and land protectors often risk their lives to protect our planet and its biodiversity. Delegations [to COP16] should keep this harsh reality in mind when they meet in Colombia, which has long been the deadliest country in the world for environmental activists. The monitoring framework should include parameters to capture initiatives and legal protections for land defenders, as well as their impact and consequences, including in terms of impunity.”
Join us on THURSDAY OCTOBER 24 at 1 pm ET to hear:
-introductory comments from Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders (Aarhus Convention)
–Berenice Celeita, the Cali, Colombia-based president of the Association for Research and Social Action (Nomadesc)
–Javier Garate, the Washington-based US Policy Advisor on Land and Environmental Defenders at Global Witness who is in Cali for COP16
–Yannick Wild, the Advocacy Coordinator for PBI-Switzerland who regularly intervenes at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The webinar will be moderated by Peace Brigades International-Canada Board member Meera Karunananthan, a professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa who also supports frontline water protectors through the Blue Planet Project.
Register now here.
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