This statement signed by 166 organizations and individuals in the lead-up to the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland notes:

“There are countless examples in all parts of the world of how forests, savannas, freshwater sources, oceans, and even the air itself, are being privatized, polluted and destroyed by industries such as agriculture, timber, pulp and paper, mining and oil and gas extraction.

These and many other industries not only wreak destruction on Mother Earth, but they also have direct and devastating impacts on human rights. Indigenous peoples and local communities living in close proximity to the production, extraction and processing of raw materials suffer dispossession of their lands, impoverishment, deterioration of their health, and destructive impacts on their culture, among many other abuses.

In turn, human rights, land and environmental defenders who seek to prevent these violations suffer threats, criminalization and violent attacks, and increasingly, killings.

Respect for, protection, promotion and fulfillment of human rights, and the protection of those who defend them, must be an essential and non-negotiable part of measures adopted in upcoming negotiations at the UN Convention of Biological Diversity, COP15, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP26.”

The statement was signed by Peace Brigades International (UK), Protection International (Belgium), Global Witness (UK), Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (Colombia), Indepaz (Colombia), Friends of the Earth International (Netherlands), ESCR-Net (Switzerland), Forest Peoples Programme (UK), JASS (USA) and many others.

 The letter is available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

In the lead-up to COP26, the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice, Fridays for Future, Global Witness and eight youth climate activists have called on governments to stop the criminalization and killing of land defenders.

PBI webinar, November 6

Peace Brigades International will be holding a webinar on COP26 and land defenders that will take place on Saturday November 6 at 1 pm EST and 1900 CEST (European time) with simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

It will feature frontline environmental defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua.

To register for this webinar, please click here.