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PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS calls for “the protection and guarantee of the rights to life, to the integrity and security of its members”

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 31, CREDHOS tweeted:

“#Threats to #Credhos The board of directors of the corporation demands that the #civilian, #police, and military #authorities guarantee the #life of the #Inhabitants of #MagdalenaMedio…

To the control and administration of justice agencies to investigate and find the intellectual and material authors of the #homicides and #threats that occurred during 2022.

To the prosecutor’s office to investigate the alleged relationships of civilian third parties, mayors, military, police and companies with #paramilitary groups. We call on the National Government, to set their sights on #Barrancabermeja and the #MagdalenaMedio for a #HumanitarianAgreement and the construction of #TotalPeace.”

CREDHOS urgent action

The 16-page urgent action from CREDHOS “requests the protection and guarantee of the rights to life, to the integrity and security of its members, who have been victims of threats, stigmatization, harassment, attacks and forced displacement for our defense work.”

Agencia Prensa Rural reports:

“This statement and complaint is presented after a video was released in the region on October 26 in which heavily armed men, who identified themselves as members of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces, pointed to members of the police and public officials as part of a supposed agreement with this illegal armed structure, which they would have breached, therefore they threaten to execute a pistol plan against members of the police, the mayor of Barrancabermeja, the Yondó inspector and leaders of ASOCOMUNALES.

The following day a new video was circulated on social networks in which another group calling itself ‘criminal gangs of Barrancabermeja’, displaying automatic weapons and in a threatening tone, responded to the previous one and directly pointed to CREDHOS as allies of the armed group, stigmatizing its members and threatening human rights defenders declaring them ‘military targets’.”

Attack on Yuli Velasquez

Among the instances of threats and attacks in the CREDHOS urgent action: “JULY 07, 2022: URGENT ACTION FOR LIFE, INTEGRITY, SECURITY AND PERMANENCE IN THE TERRITORY OF YULY VELASQUEZ SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL LEADER OF FEDEPESAN.”

The armed attack against Velasquez and National Protection Unit escort on July 5 came just days after CREDHOS, PBI-Colombia and PBI-Canada were shown on June 30 the sources of pollution impacting the San Silvestre wetland in Barrancabermeja.

Call to the international community

The urgent action concludes: “TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY: We ask the Multilateral Human Rights Organizations (Inter-American Human Rights System and the UN) to help by requesting to the Colombian State guarantees for the protection of life, integrity, and security of the human rights defenders of CREDHOS. Likewise, assistance is requested in this regard from international accompaniment organizations.”

At this time, we recall that the Canadian Embassy in Colombia has tweeted: “In #Barrancabermeja , we met with @PBIColombia, @CAHUCOPANA, @Credhos_Paz and Fedepesan to talk about the difficult security situation in #MagdalenaMedio. We must protect the leaders and guarantee free and safe movement in the territories.”

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) since 1994.

Upcoming: Join Juan Camilo Delgado from CREDHOS on this webinar Learn about the threats to the San Silvestre wetlands and its protectors, December 4.

November 5th day of action to highlight RBC financing of Coastal GasLink, RCMP violence against Wet’suwet’en land defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Decolonial Solidarity.

Decolonial Solidarity, in response to a call from Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and land defenders, is organizing a cross-country day of action on Saturday November 5.

Two weeks ago, Gidimt’en Checkpoint spokesperson Sleydo’ spoke on a Decolonial Solidarity call about RBC-financed Coastal GasLink drilling under the Wedzin Kwa river on Wet’suwet’en territory without free, prior and informed consent.

She highlighted: “[The drilling at the site of our sacred headwaters] is happening now. The salmon are spawning in the river and you can actually hear the drilling happening from kilometres away. You can feel it in the ground, in the earth, from kilometres away. The salmon are spawning and you can feel the vibration of the drilling.”

Stand.earth has documented: “RBC is among top commercial banks providing the CGL project with working capital, including CAD $275 million in project finance, a co-financed $6.5 billion loan, a $40 million corporate loan, and $200 million in co-financed working capital – while acting as financial advisor for the pipeline.”

The submission by Gidimt’en land defenders to the United Nations titled Militarization of Wet’suwet’en lands and Canada’s Ongoing Violations also highlights that “the [UN] Committee [on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has] told Canada to withdraw RCMP and security forces from Wet’suwet’en lands, and to refrain from forcibly evicting and using lethal force against Indigenous peoples.”

Since that resolution, there have been multiple arrests on Wet’suwet’en territory by the RCMP of land defenders, allies, and journalists.

Photo by Michael Toledano.

For more information on actions happening on November 5 in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria, Belleville, Moncton and other cities, click here.

Sleydo’: “By financing the Coastal GasLink pipeline, RBC is choosing to bypass our right to free, prior, and informed consent and instead justify police violence against unarmed Wet’suwet’en people to push the project through. As an Indigenous woman, I have experienced violence by militarized RCMP to forcibly remove me from my own territory, criminalize me, and jail me. RBC is willing to risk the killing of unarmed Wet’suwet’en people by police to push this project through sovereign lands.”

Video image, RBC shareholders meeting, Toronto, April 2022.

COP27 and the absence of “a safe and enabling environment” for environmental human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Indigenous Lenca water protector Berta Cáceres was killed in March 2016, less than three months after the COP21 climate summit, for her opposition to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River in Honduras. Photo by Carlos Castro.

The United Nations COP27 climate summit is set to start on November 6 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, a country where environmental defenders are repressed and there are an estimated 60,000 political prisoners behind bars.

The direness of this situation deepened just three days ago when the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released this report that says there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” and that the current pledges by States for action by 2030, if delivered in full, would still mean a rise in global warming of about 2.5C.

Attacks on communities and defenders

The UN Human Rights Council has affirmed that “human rights defenders, including environmental human rights defenders, must be ensured a safe and enabling environment to undertake their work free from hindrance and insecurity, in recognition of their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

That resolution was adopted in March 2019. At least 639 land and environmental defenders have been killed since then.

Furthermore, as Global Witness documented at COP26, more than 1,005 land and environmental rights defenders have been killed since the Paris Agreement was signed at COP21 in December 2015.

COPINH tweet: The image of Lenca environmental rights defender Berta Caceres was projected on a building in Glasgow during the COP26 summit last year.

Despite this death toll, the 10-page Glasgow work programme on Action for Climate Empowerment that emerged from COP26 in Scotland last year neither references human rights nor environmental defenders.

Renewables and continued attacks

Peace Brigades International-UK Section has also signed this statement that highlights:

“The profit driven extractive model has entrenched and exacerbated inequality, and contributed to driving conflict, environmental damage, attacks on communities and defenders, while simultaneously playing a significant role in emissions.”

The statement further notes: “An energy transition based on this model will fail.”

On that latter point, the statement details: “[There have been] at least 369 attacks on human rights, labour and environmental defenders around the world since 2015, including 98 killings, related to renewable energy projects, and 148 attacks, among them 13 killings, related to transition minerals mining.”

PBI webinar, November 15

To highlight the crucial role of environmental defenders, notably those who protect water, PBI is organizing a webinar for November 15 featuring frontline voices from Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Kenya, Nicaragua and Honduras.

To register for that webinar, please click here.

Members of COPINH, including Berta’s daughter Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, express their solidarity with Wet’suwet’en water protectors in northern British Columbia, Canada. As COP27 begins, a tunnel is being drilled under Wedzin Kwa, a river considered sacred to the Wet’suwet’en peoples, for a fracked gas pipeline that lacks their consent.

“Let us wake up! We’re out of time. We must shake our conscience free of the rapacious capitalism, racism and patriarchy that will only assure our own self-destruction. The Gualcarque River has called upon us, as have other gravely threatened rivers. We must answer their call. Our Mother Earth – militarized, fenced-in, poisoned, a place where basic rights are systematically violated – demands that we take action.”- Berta Cáceres, April 2015.

Learn about the threats to the San Silvestre wetlands and its protectors, December 7

By
Brent Patterson
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Yuli Velasquez, FEDEPSAN and the National Network of Artisanal Fishermen.

To register for this webinar on Wednesday December 7, please click here.

This past summer, PBI-Canada visited the San Silvestre ciénaga (wetland/swamp) near Barrancabermeja and met with the speakers on this webinar.

They took us out on the wetland in two boats and we witnessed the impacts of Ecopetrol and large-scale agribusiness (buffalos and palm) on the water.

Oswaldo Beltrán, FEDEPESAN.

Juan Camilo Delgado, CREDHOS.

That was on June 30.

Just a few days later on July 5, environmental leader Yuli Velásquez and César Rodríguez (her National Protection Unit/UNP escort), both of whom were on that verification trip, were shot at. Yuli injured her arm when she fell running, César was hit by a bullet in the face.

It was the third armed attacked against Yuli since January 2021. She says: “Every time we report a new pollution problem, it happens.”

Then on July 25, three armed men entered the home of Oswaldo Beltrán (another FEDEPESAN activist who was with us on the wetland on June 30), Liudmila Alemus (a water defender) and their eight-year-old son.

Threats to the wetland

Journalist Lise Josefsen Hermann, also with us on that verification visit on the water, has written the San Silvestre wetland is “affected by two landfills and several industries, including a refinery of the oil company Ecopetrol, the largest company in Colombia.”

El Tiempo has also reported: “Yuli is recognized in her region for denouncing alleged corruption with the resources Ecopetrol and the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Santander invested to clean the swamps, unclog the pipes and make an environmental recovery of all the swamps of Barrancabermeja, especially that of San Silvestre.”

In August 2021, Yuli field a request for an audit of the works carried out under contract 003-00980-2019 signed in December 2019 between the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Santander and the Unión Temporal (UT) San Silvestre. The purpose of that contract had been “to carry out cleaning, collection and disposal of floating plant material and solid waste present inside the San Silvestre swamp and tributaries in the prioritized areas.”

And Semana Sostenible has explained the wetland that supplies drinking water to Barrancabermeja has been contaminated for years by agriculture and livestock (notably thousands of hectares of African palm and large herds of cattle and buffalo), the Ecopetrol oil refinery, and the Esmeralda, Anchicayá and Yerbabuena garbage dumps.

The landfill situated in the village of Patio Bonito in Barrancabermeja was operated by Rediba (but is now operated by the French transnational Veolia).

Responsibility for the attacks

Hermann has noted “the presence of paramilitaries, the Clan del Golfo [AGC] and the ELN guerrilla group” in the area.

Environmental defenders have noted concern about suspected links between Ecopetrol and paramilitary groups.

In June, Otoniel, the captured leader of the AGC, stated that Ecopetrol made monthly contributions of 75 million pesos (about CAD $21,000.) to the Clan del Golfo in exchange for providing security in other parts of the country.

It’s an allegation that Ecopetrol denies.

Webinar, December 7

To learn more directly from these environmental defenders, join our webinar on Wednesday December 7 at 3 pm ET – register here. 

For more, see this recently released 2-minute Global Witness video.

PBI-Mexico and PBI-Colombia are seeking field volunteers – here are some details

By
Brent Patterson
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The Peace Brigades International projects in Mexico and Colombia are seeking new field volunteers. Here are some details.

Mexico (deadline to apply: November 11)

Personal interview: After the pre-selection, a personal online interview will be carried out.

Training/selection week: January 18 to 26, 2023 (virtual).

Placement in the field: Starting in February 2023.

Length of stay: A minimum commitment of 12 months.

Teams in: Chihuahua and Mexico City.

Fluency in Spanish required: C1/C2 or equivalent.

Minimum age: 25.

Coverage of the following expenses: round trip to your country of residence, all expenses for work and stay trips (accommodation, meals, medical insurance).

Monthly support: 250 euros per month for personal expenses and a repatriation of 45.00 Euros per month worked once the stay is completed and the annual volunteer contract has been successfully completed.

More information: Duna Manent, training coordinator, formacion@pbi-mexico.org

Link for more information and the applications form.

Colombia (deadline to apply: November 27)

Personal interview: Throughout December 2022 and January 2023.

Training/selection week: March 25 to April 1, 2023 (in Spain).

Placement in the field: Starting in May 2023.

Length of stay: 18 months.

Teams in: Apartadó, Barrancabermeja and Bogotá.

Fluency in Spanish: Required.

Minimum age: 25.

Coverage of the following expenses: PBI-Colombia offers financial support to cover a part (50%) of the cost of the trip for people traveling to the training/selection week from a continent other than Europe and of non-European nationality. Round trip to the project from the country of origin. Support for visa procedures, purchase of flights and the application of the necessary vaccines. These expenses are paid (reimbursed) by PBI Colombia. Medical insurance provided by the project from the moment of the beginning of their volunteer period. Financial support of the project for holiday travel to the country of origin.

Monthly support: 275 euros per month.

More information: José Serrano, human resources coordinator, coeq@pbicolombia.net

Link for more information and the application form.

For the link to a video of a recent webinar about being a volunteer, please see: PBI-Canada co-hosts field volunteer/brigadista outreach webinar.

Wet’suwet’en water protector Eve Saint to RBC CEO Dave McKay: “You are not a climate leader, you are a leader in genocide”

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Banking on a Better Future.

On October 27, Wet’suwet’en water protector Eve Saint spoke at a protest outside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Toronto as the London, Ontario-based Ivey Business School presented RBC CEO Dave McKay with their Ivey Business Leader award.

Ivey notes: “More than 400 guests, including some of Canada’s most distinguished business leaders, attended the formal dinner at The Ritz-Carlton. The award honours individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of business in Canada, and demonstrated leadership in both business and their communities.”

The day before the award ceremony RBC released its 2030 emission reduction targets. McKay claimed: “RBC is committed to helping build a cleaner future.”

But Saint said of McKay: “You are not a climate leader, you are a leader in genocide. You violate Indigenous rights, you permit modern day genocide against Indigenous people.”

RBC is financing the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline now being built on Wet’suwet’en territory without free, prior and informed consent.

Stand.earth has documented: “RBC is among top commercial banks providing the CGL project with working capital, including CAD $275 million in project finance, a co-financed $6.5 billion loan, a $40 million corporate loan, and $200 million in co-financed working capital – while acting as financial advisor for the pipeline.”

As McKay received the award, Coastal GasLink is drilling under Wedzin Kwa as the salmon spawn. Gidimt’en water protector Molly Wickham has warned: “Our way of life is at risk. Wedzin Kwa is the river that feeds all of Wet’suwet’en territory and gives life to our nation.”

The definition of genocide in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide includes: “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Charges of genocide

On April 24, 2019, Freda Huson (Howilhkat), the director of the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre, spoke at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City. Her centre is located a kilometre from the route of the Coastal GasLink pipeline and is on the road leading to their 9A Lodge man camp.

She stated: “I am here today to make UN aware of the continued genocide happening in Canada and to demand that our Indigenous rights and laws are respected.”

Last year, Wickham called on allies and supporters to come to Wet’suwet’en territory “for all the children stolen at gunpoint by the RCMP… to stand up and say the genocide will no longer happen on Indigenous lands.”

She explained: “Our identity as Indigenous peoples is tied to the land, to our water, to the fact that we harvest salmon every year. We know that the people who are killing themselves are the people who don’t have that connection to who they are as an Indigenous person. And if we don’t have that our people will die. And that’s the genocide.”

Within weeks of Wickham saying this, the RCMP launched a raid on Wet’suwet’en territory.

Days later on November 24, 2021, MP Leah Gazan tweeted: “Genocide against indigenous peoples upholding their rights and sovereignty is so normalized in Canada that when videos are released of doors being taken down with axes and chainsaws by militarized RCMP, it’s not a breaking news story. That is called normalized genocide!”

Click here for more on the Decolonial Solidarity day of action on Saturday November 5 that will demand RBC defund Coastal GasLink.

We continue to follow this.

Video of the RCMP raid on the cabin and arrest of Wickham.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies UVOC at sentence notification hearing in La Tinta, Alta Verapaz

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 27, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“PBI accompanies the UVOC [Verapaz Union of Campesino Organizations] in a sentence notification in La Tinta.”

UVOC has 367 affiliated communities (about 50,000 families); 98 per cent of which are Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi’ and Achi.”

PBI-Guatemala has been accompanying UVOC since 2005.

PBI-Mexico accompanies the Cerezo Committee at meeting of Special Search Commission on the forced disappearance of Cruz and Reyes

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Mexico has tweeted:

“Yesterday, October 26, we accompanied the @comitecerezo who will be part of the formation of the Special Search Commission for the case of forced disappearance of Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez and Edmundo Reyes Amaya, disappeared in 2007 in Oaxaca.”

Gabriel Cruz and Edmundo Reyes were militants with the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) who were detained and disappeared by the army on May 25, 2007.

PBI-Mexico links to a media release posted by the Cerezo Committee that explains:

“As relatives of Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez and Edmundo Reyes Amaya we want to inform that on October 26, the first inter-institutional meeting would be held to comply with the sentence issued by the Supreme Court, regarding the formation of the Special Search Commission for our relatives.

At 5 o’clock in the afternoon we entered the Prosecutor’s Office to start the meeting, however it could not be held since, members of the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) never showed up and the members of the Ministry of the Interior (SEGOB) arrived an hour and twenty minutes late without any explanation or justification.

Given this situation, given the absence of such instances, it was impossible to form the Special Search Commission, since both SEDENA and SEGOB are part of the responsible authorities that must be present in the integration of this and their participation is ordered in the sentence.

It was agreed with the Public Ministry in charge of the investigation to convene a new session in which all the authorities indicated in the sentence were present, which will be held next Thursday, November 3 at 6:00 p.m., at the FGR [the Attorney General’s Office].”

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Mexico began to accompany the Cerezo Committee in 2002.

CSIS deems rail blockades in support of Wet’suwet’en land defenders as acts of “ideologically motivated violent extremists”

By
Brent Patterson
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Twitter photo of blockade in Toronto, February 8, 2020. This took place during the RCMP militarized raid against Wet’suwet’en land defenders, February 6-10, 2020.

CBC reports: “Canada’s civilian spy service assessed whether First Nations land rights activists who disrupt trains should be classed as a ‘terrorist threat’ to national security alongside the likes of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, according to declassified documents.”

The 40-page counterterror briefing references both Wet’suwet’en solidarity protests and the 1492 Land Back Lane re-occupation of Mohawk lands in southern Ontario.

The article continues: “But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) eventually decided the label wouldn’t stick after probing the issue in secret, internal studies whose findings were shared with government officials in an unclassified March 2021 counterterror briefing.”

Their Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) document says: “Unsophisticated acts of unlawful interference [like blockades] do not cross the terrorism threshold.”

The CBC adds: “While not quite terrorists, the documents indicate CSIS labels First Nations activists and allies who engage in blockades as ‘ideologically motivated violent extremists’, and thus potential national security threats who warrant state surveillance.”

Jeffrey Monaghan, an associate professor of criminology at Carleton University, says: “We’ve expanded the war on terror so broadly that Indigenous rights activists are being scrutinized as potential terrorists. …Their willingness to just almost skate over the actual political grievance, the actual political movement, and all of a sudden latch on to these de-legitimizing tropes really paints a picture internally of the policing-intelligence culture that does not take Indigenous affairs seriously.”

The crucial role of environmental defenders

The UN Emissions Gap Report 2022 now says there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”. The Guardian highlights: “The report found that existing carbon-cutting policies would cause 2.8C of warming, while pledged policies cut this to 2.6C.” The world has warmed nearly 1.2C since the start of the Industrial Revolution and already faces increasingly ferocious climate-enhanced weather extremes like heatwaves, storms and floods.

In contrast to the failure of States to address climate change, this report by the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International found that resistance by Indigenous land defenders, water protectors and allies on Turtle Island “has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions [1.587 billion metric tons CO2e].”

We also recall that the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has repeatedly called on Canada to stop the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline and “that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and associated security and policing services will be withdrawn from [Wet’suwet’en] traditional lands.”

The Committee monitors compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which Canada is a signatory.

The IACHR on blockades

In June 2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) conducted a visit to Colombia to report on possible human rights violations in relation to the national strike at that time. It issued this report the following month.

Their report cautions that: “The Commission considers that the absolute prohibition of any blockade … could constitute a disproportionate restriction to freedom of expression, demonstration and assembly.”

And the report further highlighted: “In the current Colombian context, it is noted that the generic official rating of the blockages as illegal behaviors can lose sight of the specificities of each particular roadblock, as well as affecting the possibility of reaching solutions negotiated through dialogue and mediation.”

The IACHR is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS), which Canada joined in 1990.

UK Supreme Court

And in June 2021, The Guardian reported: “Four demonstrators who formed a blockade outside a London arms fair have had their convictions quashed by the supreme court, in what has been hailed as an affirmation of the right to protest.”

Two members of the court stated: “There should be a certain degree of tolerance to disruption to ordinary life, including disruption of traffic, caused by the exercise of the right to freedom of expression or freedom of peaceful assembly.”

Naomi Klein, Global Witness

Canadian author Naomi Klein has also commented: “Blockadia is a term that was first coined by activists fighting the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas. People tried to stop it with their bodies. And they called their camps Blockadia.”

Klein adds: “Blockadia is really this transnational space, roving space, where regular people [particularly Indigenous peoples] are stepping in where our leaders are failing, and they are trying to stop this era of extreme extraction.”

And the London, UK-based human rights organization Global Witness has highlighted governments should “safeguard the rights of defenders and protesters to free assembly and speech, as well as potential recourse to civil disobedience.”

We continue to follow this.

UN Special Rapporteurs Fry and Boyd say environmental human rights defenders have critical role in addressing the climate crisis

By
Brent Patterson
-

ISHR reports United Nations Special Rapporteurs Ian Fry and David Boyd have emphasized the critical role of defenders in addressing the environment and climate crises, urging States and non-State actors to take measures to protect them.

Fry is the first Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change. Boyd is the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment.

Their reports were made at the Interactive Dialogues with States at the General Assembly that took place last week.

Fry says: “As groups and communities become increasingly frustrated with the lack of action on climate change, they have turned to protests and public interventions to bear witnesses to the climate emergency. Sadly, we are seeing many climate rights defenders persecuted by governments and security organizations. Some defenders have even been killed.”

His thematic report recommends establishing an international tribunal for the prosecution of perpetrators of violence against and the killing of environmental and indigenous human rights defenders and enhanced participatory processes at future COP conferences as well as the General Assembly.

Boyd also called on States to take urgent action to safeguard environmental human rights defenders.

His report highlights that States have a procedural obligation to “protect environmental human rights defenders from intimidation, criminalization and violence, diligently investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of those crimes and address the root causes of socio-environmental conflict”.

The UN Human Rights Council has affirmed that “human rights defenders, including environmental human rights defenders, must be ensured a safe and enabling environment to undertake their work free from hindrance and insecurity, in recognition of their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

That resolution was adopted in March 2019. At least 639 land and environmental defenders have been killed since then.

The crucial role of environmental defenders

The UN Emissions Gap Report 2022 says there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”. The Guardian highlights: “The report found that existing carbon-cutting policies would cause 2.8C of warming, while pledged policies cut this to 2.6C.” The world has warmed nearly 1.2C since the start of the Industrial Revolution and already faces increasingly ferocious climate-enhanced weather extremes like heatwaves, storms and floods.

In contrast to the failure of states to address climate change, this report by the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International found that the resistance by Indigenous land defenders, water protectors and allies on Turtle Island “has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions [1.587 billion metric tons CO2e].”

To hear frontline climate defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Kenya, join our webinar on November 15.

Yuli Velásquez (Colombia), Walter Rene López Pérez (Guatemala), Ana Paola Torres Barranco (Mexico), Gladys Losike (Kenya), Amaru Ruiz (Nicaragua).

More on the thematic reports from the UN Special Rapporteurs in this International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) article at UN experts call for protection of human rights defenders in addressing environment and climate crises.

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