Murdered Activists News

An indigenous Guajajara leader was reported murdered by loggers Friday, adding to rising violence occurring against forest protectors under the Jair Bolsonaro government.

MEDAN, Indonesia — Police in Indonesia insist that an outspoken environmental activist found dead under suspicious circumstances in the Sumatran city of Medan last week was killed in a motorcycle…

MEDAN, Indonesia — Environmental activists in Indonesia have raised suspicions over the death this week of a human rights defender who was a staunch advocate of communities threatened by oil…

It isn’t unusual for those who defend the environment to be threatened, but sometimes their commitment to nature puts their lives directly at risk. According to a recently published Global…

At least 9 people are known dead in new violent attacks on remote Amazon communities near areas of heavy deforestation and large hydroelectric dams.

As part of a wave of rural violence sweeping Amazonia, dam activist Dilma Ferreira Silva, her husband and a friend were brutally murdered last Friday; a large scale landowner is in custody.

In 2018, logger Silvério Fernandes helped jail Father Amaro, land activist successor to slain U.S. nun Dorothy Stang. That logger may soon head a key Amazon land reform office.

Berta Cáceres, a high-profile environmental activist in Honduras, was assassinated in 2016. While seven men were convicted for her murder less than a month ago, her death is a reminder…

As Grainrail, the BR-163 and BR-319 highways, and other transport projects improve Amazon access, they attract land thieves ready to kill.

Jair Bolsonaro pledged to leave the Paris accord during his presidential run. But his Amazon agribusiness and mining expansion plans may pose a far bigger threat to forests and global climate.

Lambayeque, PERU - Authorities in Peru late last month arrested a dozen alleged members of the notorious El Gran Chaparral criminal syndicate. The members were arrested on the charges of…

Interviewed by Mongabay in 2016, Aluisio Sampaio is the most recent victim in a growing wave of Amazon violence against socio-environmental activists.

After the Seko indigenous peoples of Indonesia rejected a plan to build a hydropower plant on their traditional lands in the province of South Sulawesi, the company behind the plant…

The number of indigenous leaders, community activists, and environmentalists killed every year while protecting their lands and communities from agribusiness, mining, and other industries continues to rise. According to a…

The Temer administration ignored UN letters warning of threats to land defenders and environmentalists, and condemning Brazil’s record number of activist murders.

Esmond Bradley Martin, a well-known elephant and rhino conservationist, has been found dead, apparently of a stab wound to his neck, according to multiple media reports. His wife, Chryssee, found…

Three people have been shot and killed by soldiers in northeastern Cambodia, according to officials as reported by The Associated Press. Those killed were a conservation worker, a military policy…

Colombian community leader Hernan Bedoya, who defended collective land rights for Afro-Colombian farmers as well as local biodiversity in the face of palm oil and industrial agriculture expansion, was allegedly…

Environment and human rights advocates in the Philippines gathered Tuesday to honor their colleague Mia Mascariñas-Green, who was shot dead Feb. 15. Mascariñas-Green, a lawyer for the NGO Environmental Legal…

n a Tuesday in March, indigenous activist Nelson García was shot in the face in northwest Honduras. The next day, in Guatemala, unknown attackers found environmentalist Walter Méndez outside his…

n the oil-rich department of Casanare in eastern Colombia, Daniel Abril Fuentes was known as a campesino leader, defender of human rights, and constant critic of the oil interests he…

On July 1, two gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed anti-coal activist, Gloria Capitan, inside her karaoke bar in Mariveles, Bataan in the Philippines. Capitan, 57, sustained three gunshot wounds, two…

Bill Kayong, a dedicated land rights activist and member of the opposition party in Malaysia’s Sarawak state, was killed in a drive-by shooting while waiting at a traffic light in…

n November 2008, a gang of around 70 assailants attacked S. Mugilan and his nine comrades with kadaparais (crowbars) and aruvals (curved machetes). The attack took place at around three…

Colombia's palm oil expansion appears increasingly to be exacerbating a social cost, with critics saying much of the development has taken place on lands originally seized during the country’s long armed conflict.

Indigenous small-scale miners and traditional authorities in western Colombia are facing threats in the wake of a local leader’s murder this spring. On April 7, 2015, Fernando Salazar Calvo was…

A resident of Mataquescuintla, Guatemala, at a November 2014 celebration of the second anniversary of the municipality's referendum on mining. The referendum was one of many in the region, and…

Soy field in the Brazilian Amazon. Again this year, Brazil has the highest number of murders of environmental and land defenders. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The assassination, murder, and…

Silver bar. Photo by: Unit 5/Creative Commons 3.0. Earlier this month, environmental activist, Telésforo Odilo Pivaral Gonzalez, was killed by unknown assailants who shot him five times. The father of…

Known for his opposition to Chinese mine project, indigenous leader found bound and buried in Ecuador Days before José Isidro Tendetza Antún was supposed to travel to the UN Climate…