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COP26 failing land defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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A quick update about the COP26 climate summit before we travel to witness the Wet’suwet’en land defence struggle in British Columbia.

Thank you to everyone who registered for our webinar on COP26 this past Saturday. If you missed it, the link to the video, excerpts and more can be found at PBI hosts webinar with frontline environmental defenders during COP26 summit.

We had more than 400 people from 17 countries register for this webinar and already the video has been watched almost 200 times!

Sadly, the actions – and even the words – of the leaders gathered in Glasgow for this summit are falling far short of what is needed.

Despite the killings of more than 1,005 land and environmental rights defenders since COP21 in 2015, the first draft of the Glasgow decision text fails to make mention that the criminalization and violence against defenders must stop.

As such our collective work of accompanying defenders, amplifying their struggles and advocating for change must and will continue.

Accompaniments this week

1- PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya at a monthly mass at mine protest

2- PBI-Guatemala accompanies BDH lawyers at hearing in killing of French NGO worker Benoit Maria

3- PBI-Honduras accompanies Arcoiris/Rainbow Association at release of report on violence against LGBTQI+ community

4- PBI-Colombia accompanies the Justice and Peace Commission to the Chidima Tolo reservation

5- PBI-Colombia accompanies Justice and Peace Commission at Perla Amazónica Peasant Reserve Zone

6- PBI-Colombia accompanies CREDHOS at psychosocial workday in Cimitarra, Magdalena Medio

There are also many more daily posts on Twitter at @PBIcanada about other accompaniments, COP26 and our ongoing work. We encourage you to follow us on Twitter, we have been able to expand our reach by more than 6,000 people over the last two years.

And if you can support this work with a donation large or small, please donate now. Any amount is appreciated, it helps us to continue to do our work, and a charitable tax receipt is automatically generated and emailed to you!

Thank you!

Brent, PBI-Canada

Federal Court of Appeal to rule on call for investigation into the death of human rights defender Mariano Abarca in Mexico

By
Brent Patterson
-

Mariano Abarca was murdered in 2009. His family asked Joe Friday, Canada’s Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, to investigate the matter. Federal Court Justice Keith Boswell ruled Friday’s decision not to investigate was reasonable.

On November 8, the Canadian Press reported: “Family and supporters of a Mexican activist who was killed after opposing a Canadian company’s mining project are challenging a federal ombudsman’s decision not to investigate the matter.”

“They told a Federal Court of Appeal hearing Monday the public sector integrity commissioner had grounds to look into allegations that Canadian officials in Mexico City failed to follow federal policies concerning protection of human rights advocates. Federal lawyers say there is no reason to revisit the commissioner’s decision to close the file.”

The article adds: “After hearing several hours of arguments Monday, the appeal court reserved judgment until a later date.”

Community leader Mariano Abarca was murdered on November 27, 2009, after leading peaceful protests against the environmental impacts of a barite mine in Chicomuselo, Chiapas operated by Calgary-based Blackfire Exploration Ltd.

One of those protests included this July 22, 2009, speech at a protest outside the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City. NACLA explains: “He delivered a speech targeting an embassy worker, saying ‘thugs’ from Blackfire had been harassing protesters.”

This MiningWatch Canada media statement notes: “The Abarca family believes that the role of the Canadian embassy in Mexico, including to pressure Chiapas authorities on behalf of Blackfire to quell protests when Canadian officials knew that Mariano was being criminalized and threatened, put his life at greater risk.”

CBC has reported: “Three men with links to the mine were arrested and one was subsequently convicted. Blackfire Exploration denied any knowledge of the events and was not charged. However, the RCMP did raid the company’s Calgary offices after it was accused of bribing local officials to suppress anti-mine protests.”

After the murder, Abarca’s family asked Joe Friday, the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, to investigate this situation.

The Toronto Star has explained: “The legal framework for the alleged wrongdoing [by Embassy officials] is the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. The policies that are alleged to have been breached include a failure to adhere to corporate social responsibility guidelines established when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were in power.”

The Commissioner declined to investigate.

Lawyer Yavar Hameed, who represents Abarca’s family, says: “If allegations that Canadian Embassy support for a mining company could have endangered the life of a human rights defender are not worthy of an integrity investigation, what is the point of having an integrity commissioner?”

Federal Court Justice Keith Boswell ruled in July 2019 that the Commissioner’s decision not to investigate was reasonable.

Boswell wrote: “Undoubtedly, the Applicants would have liked the Embassy to have acted in a certain way, and perhaps Mr. Abarca would not have been murdered. However, the Commissioner’s decision not to investigate was, in my view, reasonable and constitutes an acceptable outcome defensible in respect of the facts and law.”

Notably, NACLA reported: “Friday ultimately rejected the group’s arguments, stating Canada’s policies related to corporate social responsibility were not ‘official’ – that is, not binding—and therefore the complaint was not in the public interest to investigate.”

This prompts concerns about the non-binding Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders document first published seven years after Abarca’s death and later updated in June 2019.

“Creating the conditions” for risk

The Toronto Star has reported: “An unnamed company executive [from Blackfire] emailed [Canadian] embassy officials [in Mexico City] in September 2008, thanking them for everything ‘that the embassy has done to pressure the [Chiapas] state government to get things going for us. We could not do it without your help.’”

This week, Global Witness senior advisor Louis Wilson commented on the murder of another human rights defender in Mexico, Óscar Eyraud.

Wilson explained: “His community, an Indigenous community there, had been denied access to traditional water resources, at the same time as a big corporation, Heineken, was granted additional access by the local government.”

Óscar was murdered in September 2020.

Wilson remarked: “Nobody, I think, would suggest that Heineken directly organized that killing, but it’s clear that they created the conditions that made that murder possible. And it’s very difficult to see that murder, or indeed many of the other 227 murders [of human rights defenders in 2020 documented in the Global Witness report Last Line of Defence], taking place without that resource extraction by big companies.”

Similarly, Shin Imai of the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP) has commented: “We’re not saying that the Canadian embassy ordered the assassination of Abarca. What we’re saying is, because of the danger [faced by] human rights defenders, embassies have policies that are supposed to reduce the risk.”

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya at a monthly mass at mine protest

By
Brent Patterson
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On November 8, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted: “Yesterday Sunday we accompanied the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya in the celebration of the monthly mass that they celebrate in the sit-in.”

In terms of context:

In March 2012 residents from San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc – an area known as La Puya, just north of Guatemala City – set up a 24-hour a day blockade at the entrance of the Vancouver-based Radius Gold Inc. El Tambor mine.

By August 2012, the Canadian company sold El Tambor to US-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates, but retained an economic interest in the mine (including quarterly royalty payments on the gold production from the mine).

On May 23, 2014, after two years of peaceful struggle, the communities in resistance to the mine were violently evicted by the police.

By February 2016, the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya won a Guatemalan Supreme Court ruling that provisionally suspended the mining licence because there had not been prior consultation with affected communities, as is required under Guatemalan and international law, in particular the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169.

Even after their eviction in 2014 and the court ruling in 2016, members of La Puya continued a 24-hour presence in opposition to the mine.

Then in December 2018, Kappes, Cassiday & Associates filed a $300 million claim with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a World Bank arbitration mechanism, claiming its investor rights under the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) had been violated.

On May 21, 2021, the court suspension on the mine imposed in 2016 was lifted, but authorization for the mine to begin operation has not been granted. The police were present at the site to enforce the court ruling, while the Resistance reaffirmed its commitment to the peaceful fight for the defence of life, natural property and territory.

On June 21, 2021, according to the World Bank ICSID website, “The Tribunal [hearing the claim] issued Procedural Order No. 7 concerning confidentiality matters.” PBI-Guatemala has previously noted: “The Peaceful Resistance is forming legal alliances and solidarity across national and international organizations and groups [to] make their voices heard in this exclusionary procedure.”

On July 16, 2021, PBI-Guatemala accompanied the Resistance at the site of the blockade/sit-in for a dialogue with state institutions in the framework of international arbitration process driven by the company Kappes, Cassiday & Associates.

We continue to follow this situation closely.

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project has accompanied the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya since November 2012.

Glasgow decision text makes no reference to deadly situation for environmental human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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COPINH tweet: The image of Lenca environmental rights defender Berta Caceres is projected in Glasgow. Caceres was killed in March 2016, just months after COP21.

On Saturday November 6, Peace Brigades International convened this webinar with six frontline environmental defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mexico and Nicaragua in the context of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

That webinar also featured UN Special Rapporteur David R. Boyd who stated: “We need more defenders of the right to a healthy environment, Indigenous rights, the rights of the child and other human rights. And yet in far too many states today standing up for the environment is a dangerous and even deadly activity.”

As Global Witness highlighted at their commemoration last week outside the COP26 meeting site in Glasgow, more than 1,005 land and environmental rights defenders have been killed since the COP21 summit in 2015 in Paris.

Democracy Now! spoke with Andrea Ixchíu, a Maya K’iche’ leader, journalist and human rights defender based in Guatemala, and Global Witness senior adviser Louis Wilson, about the situation faced by defenders. You can watch that interview and more here.

Now Greenpeace has posted the first draft of the Glasgow decision text.

Greenpeace comments: “Campaigners are gravely concerned because ordinarily, the first draft of a COP text is relatively ambitious and becomes weaker over the second week as countries work in caveats for themselves. For the first draft to be so weak does not bode well.”

The first draft makes no mention of the dangers faced by land and environmental rights defenders on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

This despite the UN Human Rights Council resolution of March 2019 that affirms 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.”

This also follows the tweet from David R. Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, that stated: “How on Earth can there be no mention of #HumanRights in the COP26 work programme on public participation in climate action?”

This relates to the Glasgow work programme on Action for Climate Empowerment that should amplify and reaffirm international frameworks such as the Aarhus Convention and the Escazú Agreement, significant agreements for the safety of defenders.

We continue to monitor this situation with concern.

COP26 is schedule to conclude on November 12.

Exiled environmental activist Amaru Ruiz on the November 7th election in Nicaragua

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Amaru Ruiz with Bianca Jagger and Mónica López Baltodano, an environmental lawyer and daughter of former Sandinista guerrilla commander Mónica Baltodano.

On Saturday November 6, Amaru Ruiz spoke from Glasgow on the Peace Brigades International webinar on the COP26 summit and environmental rights defenders. To hear his presentation, click here (Ruiz is at the 27:58 mark).

The following day, Ruiz spoke at a rally in London against electoral fraud.

As expected, President Daniel Ortega has retained power following the election held in Nicaragua on Sunday November 7.

Deutsche Welle reports: “Seven people who could have challenged Ortega in Sunday’s vote are now in prison, along with 32 other opposition figures, following a government crackdown that started in June against opposition parties.”

That article adds that there were no international observers of the election and that foreign media were denied access to cover it.

Le Monde reports that Urnas abiertas, a citizen observatory of the electoral process, documented an abstention rate of 81.5 per cent. That article adds: “According to a CID Gallup poll, if they had had a choice, 65 percent of the 4.4 million registered voters would have voted for an opposition candidate, compared to 19 percent for the incumbent.”

Sandinistas in prison

The former Sandinista guerilla commander and later health minister Dora María Téllez was arrested on June 13 and remains in El Chipote Prison.

Another Sandinista leader, Hugo Torres Jiménez, who helped free Ortega from prison in December 1974, was also arrested in June and remains in prison.

Sergio Ramírez Mercado, who first publicly expressed support for the Sandinista guerilla movement in 1977 and later became the country’s vice-president in 1985, announced in October that he would live in exile in Spain.

Téllez, Torres, Ramirez and many others participated in the popular revolution that overthrew the US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in July 1979. The US-backed Contra war that followed claimed the lives of more than 30,000 people.

PBI’s first field placement was in September 1983 in Jalapa, Nicaragua close to the Honduran border where US-backed Contra forces were launching attacks. JoLeigh Commandant, who became the first director of PBI’s Toronto-based Central America Project was part of our interposition presence there to help deter hostilities.

Ortega lost the presidency in 1990 but returned to power in 2007.

Shortly afterwards, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, a supporter of the Sandinistas, said that Ortega led “a deplorable regime.” Another supporter, Portuguese writer José Saramago commented: “Once more a revolution has been betrayed from within.”

Nicaraguans in exile

It is estimated that since 2018 about 100,000 Nicaraguans have been forced into exile, mainly relocating to Spain, the US and Costa Rica.

The BBC reports that the exile community in Costa Rica had called on Nicaraguans to boycott the election because of the irregularities. And Reuters has reported: “Nicaraguans forced to flee across the country’s southern border into Costa Rica expressed a mix of anger, pain and resignation ahead of Sunday’s election.”

In January 2020, the Peace Brigades International-Nicaragua Project was established in Costa Rica to provide accompaniment, psychosocial support, networking facilitation and security workshops to Nicaraguan human rights defenders living in exile.

PBI-Nicaragua provides organizational strengthening support to groups representing the student movement, the LGBTIQ+ community, feminist women, women from the Afro-Caribbean region of southern Nicaragua, and the peasant movement.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies BDH lawyers at hearing in killing of French NGO worker Benoit Maria

By
Brent Patterson
-

On November 7, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted: “PBI accompanied the Human Rights Law Firm [BDH] in the Hearing of the First Declaration in the Higher Risk Court of Quetzaltenango regarding the case of the murder of Benito María, who was part of the organization Agronomists and Veterinarian Without Borders in Guatemala. Also present is the Consul of France Mr. Brice Sardain.”

In August 2020, Entremundos reported: “Social and human rights organizations expressed their repudiation of the murder of Benoit Pierre Amedee María, known as ‘Benito’, who was a French citizen and lived in Guatemala for 20 years.”

That article adds: “A number of social media users, including activists, human rights defenders, and members of indigenous communities, who had the opportunity to meet Benito personally classified the murder a cowardly act towards a person who had given so much to the poorest communities in the country.”

Prensa Comunitaria also noted: “His work here has always been in favor of the peoples, especially in the Mayan Q’eqchi ‘and Ixil region, on issues of sustainable agriculture, peasant markets, recovery of native seeds, ancestral and veterinary medicine.”

On September 29, Le Parisien reported: “Two men, Elias Eliseo and Diego Tay Vicente, were arrested after searches in the village, located in the department of Quiché, the prosecutor’s office added without specifying the links between the two men. Weapons and ammunition were seized.”

That article adds: “The motive for the murder is still unknown, but the theft was ruled out because the victim’s personal belongings, including his phone, computer and cash, were found in the bullet-riddled vehicle.”

At the time of those arrests, Prensa Comunitaria reported: “Some people who asked not to be summoned say that investigations should continue to establish whether there are more people involved and that the masterminds should be reached out to clarify the causes of B’en Ijo’s murder, as he was known to the Ixil people.”

And last month, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) stated: “The sudden transfer of Human Rights Prosecutor Hilda Pineda is a new step towards the extinction of the rule of law, denounced the Observatory (OMCT-FIDH), UDEFEGUA and CALDH. It is urgent to reinstate the prosecutor and guarantee the continuity of the investigations under her charge to avoid impunity in cases of crimes against humanity and serious human rights violations, the organizations added.”

“At the time of his transfer, he was in charge of the ‘Diario Militar’ case, about the capture, torture and forced disappearance of at least 183 political opponents between 1983 and 1985 allegedly at the hands of the military and police, as well as the investigations into the murder of human rights defender Benoît Maria in August 2020.”

The article adds: “Transferring Hilda Pineda from the Prosecutor’s Office puts at serious risk the progress in these cases, as well as the processes of justice and reparation for thousands of victims of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity.”

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied BDH lawyer Édgar Pérez Archila since August 2010 and the other BDH lawyers beginning in late 2013.

Benoit Maria

UN Special Rapporteur concerned by no mention of human rights in COP26 work programme on public participation in climate action

By
Brent Patterson
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On November 6, David R. Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, tweeted:

This relates to the Glasgow work programme on Action for Climate Empowerment.

Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) is a term adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Article 6 of the Convention focuses on six priority areas: education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information, and international cooperation.

The importance of ACE is reflected in other international frameworks such as the Aarhus Convention and the Escazú Agreement.

Aarhus Convention

While the Aarhus Convention was adopted in 1998, the new agreement adopted last month establishes a post for a Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders.

The new agreement outlines the various tools available to the Special Rapporteur for resolving complaints and protecting environmental defenders. They include issuing immediate protection measures, using diplomatic channels, releasing public statements, and bringing urgent cases to relevant human rights bodies for action.

Canada is not a signatory to the Aarhus Convention.

Escazú Agreement

The Escazú Agreement is the first legally binding treaty to include specific provisions to protect environmental defenders.

Article 9 includes the obligation for States to: “guarantee a safe and enabling environment for persons, groups and organizations that promote and defend human rights in environmental matters, so that they are able to act free from threat, restriction and insecurity.”

Article 9 also mandates States to: “prevent, investigate and punish attacks, threats or intimidations that human rights defenders in environmental matters may suffer while exercising the rights set out in the present Agreement.”

Mexico ratified the agreement on January 22 of this year, but neither Guatemala nor Colombia have ratified the agreement. Honduras has not signed it.

Environmental defenders and climate change

The United Nations Human Rights Council passed this resolution in March 2019 that affirms 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.”

On November 2, our friends at Global Witness organized a commemoration outside the COP26 summit site in Glasgow to honour the 1,005 land and environmental rights defenders killed since COP21 in Paris.

The land and environmental rights defenders murdered in 2020 includes 65 defenders in Colombia, 30 in Mexico, 17 in Honduras, 13 in Guatemala and 12 in Nicaragua.

On November 6, Boyd joined with defenders in these countries to reflect on environmental rights struggles and COP26. To watch that webinar, including Boyd’s remarks at the 4:45 minute mark, please click here.

Canada backs 30 x 30 despite concerns of conservation by dispossession and the militarization of conservation

By
Brent Patterson
-

In September 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada’s support for the “high ambition coalition” and the 30 x 30 initiative.

Mongabay has explained: “Their core proposal is called ‘30 by 30’ – a plan to conserve 30 per cent of Earth’s land and sea areas by 2030 through ‘area-based conservation measures’ like protected national parks.”

That may sound like a good plan, but the article then highlights: “Some Indigenous advocates and their allies have sharply criticized the plan, saying it takes the wrong approach to conservation and, if implemented poorly, could result in millions of people being evicted from their ancestral territories.”

Critics say it builds on the legacy of conservation by dispossession.

Open Democracy reports: “Historian Mark Spence put it over two decades ago, an untouched wilderness needed to be created before it could be protected. That is, millions of people have been dispossessed in the name of conservation.”

The article highlights: “30×30 threatens to dispossess many more.”

UN Rapporteurs express concern

Last year, José Francisco Cali Tzay, who is Maya Kaqchikel from Guatemala and the UN special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, commented: “Throughout conservation’s checkered history, we have seen exclusionary conservation as a gateway to human rights abuses and militarized forms of violence.”

At the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this year, Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, the former special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, emphasized: “There is no nature-based solution for climate change if Indigenous Peoples are not central to every proposal.” 30×30 is considered a “nature-based solution.”

She highlighted Indigenous peoples at COP26 are calling on policymakers to: “recognize and enforce their territorial rights, stop the criminalization and murder of forest guardians, and the right to free, prior and informed consent.”

Furthermore, this past August, 49 organizations expressed concern with this initiative: “While protecting at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 is on its face a worthy goal of responding to biodiversity loss, the Framework’s focus on ‘protected areas’ will likely continue to lead to human rights abuses across the globe.”

One of the signatories, the Swift Foundation, says: “How it’s working right now is a militarized form of conservation. You have guards with guns, people imposing fines, building fences and kicking people out of their traditional lands. And if communities react in defense they are perceived as anti-conservation.”

Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Kenya

Countries that are members of the so-called “High Ambition Coalition” backing 30×30 include Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Kenya.

This past January, the Colombian minister of climate and sustainable development stated his government was “committing to the 30×30 target.” At COP26, Colombian president Ivan Duque to promised protect 30 per cent of his country’s territory by 2022. Duque stated: “We can’t wait until 2030, we must act now to protect our forests.”

Last month, The Guardian reported: “[The Indigenous Tzeltal ejido of San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas] is leading the first lawsuit against one of 500 or so barracks planned across [Mexico]” Ivette Galván, a lawyer with the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Centro Prodh), says: “This is the first [injunction] presented by an indigenous community against these barracks on the infringement of their collective rights.”

And ten years ago the Guatemalan government opened six new military detachments in the Laguna del Tigre National Park and announced its decision to carry out evictions in the park. The government said this was to protect the environment and combat drug trafficking. At the same time, it extended an oil extraction contract in the park.

COP15, April-May 2022

30×30 is expected to be a headline outcome of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) COP15 summit in April-May 2022.

We will continue to follow this issue.

Instagram post by Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of the environment and climate change, endorsing 30×30.

PBI hosts webinar with frontline environmental defenders during COP26 summit

By
Brent Patterson
-

Hannah Matthews (PBI international communications coordinator) moderated this panel featuring David R. Boyd (UN Special Rapporteur), Juana Ramona Zuñiga (Honduras), Amaru Ruiz (Nicaragua), Nelly Madegwa (Kenya), Valeria Villalobos (Mexico), Sandra Calel (Guatemala) and Danilo Rueda (Colombia).

On November 6, Peace Brigades International hosted a webinar featuring six frontline land and environmental rights defenders and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment.

There were 408 people registered for the webinar and viewers joined from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Italy, Germany, United States, UK, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Canada, Austria, Trinidad and Tobago.

To watch the video of the webinar, please click here. To date, it has 178 views.

David R. Boyd

“We need more defenders of the right to a healthy environment, Indigenous rights, the rights of the child and other human rights. And yet in far too many states today standing up for the environment is a dangerous and even deadly activity.” – David R. Boyd

David R. Boyd is the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment. He is a lawyer based on Vancouver Island, Canada.

On October 8, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted this resolution recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

David has commented: “This resolution is especially important for all of the environmental human rights defenders working, often at great personal risk, to safeguard the land, air, water and ecosystems that we all depend on.”

Follow David at @SREnvironment.

Juana Ramona Zuñiga

“It is unfortunate when in other countries we have been awarded for the defense of this river, for the defense of this national park, and that in Honduras they are criminalizing us.” – Juana Ramona Zúñiga

Juana is a member of the Comité Municipal de Defensa de los Bienes Comunes y Públicos (Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Assets – CMDBCP). She lives in the village of Guapinol in the municipality of Tocoa in the department of Colón.

Her husband José Abelino Cedillo is currently in prison with seven other defenders for their role in peacefully defending the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers from contamination by the Inversiones Los Pinares iron oxide mine.

Follow this struggle at @GuapinolResiste.

Amaru Ruiz

“For denouncing that incoherence [of the Nicaraguan government promising to protect forests while criminalizing forest protectors] they have criminalized us.” – Amaru Ruiz

Amaru Ruíz is a biologist, researcher, environmentalist, and president of the Fundación del Río, a non-profit organization founded in 1990, focused on sustainable development and the conservation of natural assets in southeastern Nicaragua.

Amaru has lived in exile since December 2018 and from Costa Rica continues to advocate for the environmental defense of the southeast of the country, accompanying indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, and promoting actions with the Nicaraguan peasant population exiled in the north of the country.

Follow Amaru at @AmaruRuiz.

Nelly Madegwa

“in Kenya there is a law that women can own land, but in practice this is not the case. The community doesn’t understand that.” -Nelly Madegwa

Nelly works on cases that involve violations of women rights to land ownership and leads community cafes on the importance of women’s right to own land being respected and how it connects to them contributing to food security for the country.

Kenya is highly vulnerable to climate change which is worsening droughts and erratic rainfall. Owning land is key to helping women cope with the impacts of climate change, such as drought, and enables them to feed their families. Women head about 32 per cent of households in Kenya, but individually hold only 1 per cent of land titles.

Follow Nelly at @chamadui.

Valeria Villalobos

“The political and economic powers are determined to manipulate and devalue the environmental and cultural heritage represented by our hills and bodies of water, key points for climate change strategies.” – Valeria Villalobos

Valeria is an environmental defender with Salvemos los cerros in Chihuahua City and works “to save the hills that are the source of life, water, air, culture, identity.”

Her organization has highlighted: “The hills help capture water and mitigate climate change. As the destruction of natural areas advances, so will ‘natural’ disasters. …We all lose out with the terrible political and economic model that destroys the environment. A few make a lot of money, but money can’t be eaten, it can’t be taken, it can’t breathe, and it can’t heal.”

Follow this struggle at @salvemoscerros1.

Sandra Calel

“We are doing everything possible to continue fighting to defend nature, all to denounce deforestation, because they cover their wells from where they get the water. The northern region is still where there are rivers, where there is forest, where there are large ravines, but there are many lives that have already given to defend nature.” – Sandra Calel

Sandra is Maya Poqomchi and a deputy coordinator of the Verapaz Union of Campesina Organizations (UVOC), an Indigenous and campesina organization that defends territory and access to land for people in the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz.

Many of the communities accompanied by UVOC are already suffering severely from climate change. Last autumn, hurricanes Iota and Eta severely damaged communities, killing more than 150 people. Indigenous communities in the region confirm that while hurricanes are “normal” the level of destruction by these hurricanes was exacerbated by already existing damage to the natural environment.

Follow UVOC at @UVOCGUATE.

Danilo Rueda

“Only the people, the organized society, saves the organized society. Only to the extent that the conscious citizen power, the power of the people, is the conscious power, society will be transformed.” – Danilo Rueda

Danilo is the national coordinator of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission that works to achieve socio-environmental justice.

He has commented: “Big business, hand in hand with Colombian and international policy, is destroying water sources and flora and fauna by depleting the forests. This is capitalist logic, which favours the accumulation of capital, and in the long term, the effects are highly negative.”

Rueda adds: “[Protecting the environment is] empowerment and capacity building to address the impacts of land rights violations. In this area we also promote resilience against the problem of climate change.”

Follow the Justice and Peace Commission at @Justiciaypazcol.

Once again, to watch the video of the webinar, please click here.

PBI-Honduras accompanies Arcoiris/Rainbow Association at release of report on violence against LGBTQI+ community

By
Brent Patterson
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(Left to right) Francia Maradiaga (National Human Rights Commission/Conadeh), Grecia O’Hara (Center for LGBTI Development and Cooperation/Somos CDC), Denilson Barrientos (Arcoiris/Rainbow LGBT Association) and Ruby Cardona (Asociación Muñecas de Arcoiris/ Rainbow Dolls Association).

On November 2, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project accompanied the presentation of a report on the LGTBIQ+ community in Honduras.

PBI-Honduras tweeted: “This afternoon, the Arcoiris LGTB Association of Honduras and Somos- CDC [Center for Development and LGBTI Cooperation] will share about the situation of the #LGTBI community in #Honduras and the need for a human rights approach in media coverage.”

It also noted: “Together with other organizations they work on several legislative projects for a more inclusive society without discrimination and without hate speech.”

Now Proceso Digital reports: “Crimes against members of the LGTBIQ+ population in Honduras exceed 200. So far this year alone, statistics account for 22 murders while between 2015 and 2020 reports indicate that 183 were the fatalities. Apart from that, violence, discrimination and hatred continue to increasingly exclude and harm them, according to the report on the situation of the diverse community in the country.”

That article continues:

“Systemic violence generates a worrying increase in aggressions and murders, Denilson Barrientos, a member of the LGBT association Arcoiris, told Proceso Digital during an event to expose a reality that deeply violates them.

According to the data of his organization, the LGTBIQ + community of Honduras becomes the most punished in Central America.

Barrientos recalled that, in 2016, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) indicated that 50% of crimes against this group in the region occur in Honduras.

According to the defenders of the rights of the LGTBIQ+ community, the National Police, Military Police and the Army continue to top the list of those responsible for these violations of rights against the collective, especially against trans people.”

The article concludes: “The presentation of the report on the situation of the LGTBIQ+ community in Honduras was sponsored by Brigadas Internacionales de Paz, Association LGTB Arcoíris, SOMOS and the Catalan Agency for Cooperation. (IR).”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied the Arcoíris LGTB Association of Honduras since July 2015.

PBI-Honduras accompanies Arcoiris.

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