Murder of environmentalists appears on the rise

In this photo taken, Feb. 6, 2012, and released by The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), Chut Wutty, left, stands next to a log in a jungle in Kampong Thom province in northern of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. / AP Photo

(AP) BANGKOK - The eulogies called Chut Wutty one of the few remaining activists in Cambodia brave enough to fight massive illegal deforestation by the powerful. The environmental watchdog was shot by a military policeman in April as he probed logging operations in one of the country's last great forests.

Nisio Gomes was the chief of a Brazilian tribe struggling to protect its land from ranchers. Masked men gunned him down in November; his body, quickly dragged into a pickup, has not been seen since.

Around the world, sticking up for the environment can be deadly, and it appears to be getting deadlier.

People who track killings of environmental activists say the numbers have risen dramatically in the last three years. Improved reporting may be one reason, they caution, but they also believe the rising death toll is a consequence of intensifying battles over dwindling supplies of natural resources, particularly in Latin America and Asia.

Killings have occurred in at least 34 countries, from Brazil to Egypt, and in both developing and developed nations, according to an Associated Press review of data and interviews.

A report released Tuesday by the London-based Global Witness said more than 700 people - more than one a week - died in the decade ending 2011 "defending their human rights or the rights of others related to the environment, specifically land and forests." They were killed, the environmental investigation group says, during protests or investigations into mining, logging, intensive agriculture, hydropower dams, urban development and wildlife poaching.

The death toll reached 96 in 2010 and 106 last year, said the report, which was released as world leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a conference on sustainable development. The report's annual totals for the six prior years range from 37 in 2004 to 64 in 2008.

More than three-quarters of the killings Global Witness tallied were in three South American countries: Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Another 50 deaths occurred in the Philippines. All have bloody land-rights struggles between indigenous groups and powerful industries.

Global Witness' figures are much higher that those that Bill Kovarik, a communications professor at Virginia's Radford University, has been compiling since 1996. He focuses on slayings of environmental leaders and does not include deaths in protests that are counted in the Global Witness report. But Kovarik, too, has noticed a substantial jump: from eight in 2009 to 11 in 2010 and 28 last year.

"For many years intolerant regimes like Russia and China and military dictatorships tolerated environmental activists. That was the one thing you could do safely, until some crossed into the political area," Kovarik said. "Now, environmentalism has become a dangerous form of activism, and that is relatively new."

Both Kovarik and Global Witness believe even more killings have gone unreported, especially in relatively closed societies in countries such as Myanmar, Laos and China. Global Witness said there is an "alarming lack of systematic information on killing in many countries and no specialized monitoring at the international level."

In this undated photo, Italian Catholic priest Rev. Fausto Tentorio is shown in Arakan township, North Cotabato, Philippines.

/ AP Photo/Pontifical Institute

The dead last year included Rev. Fausto Tentorio, an Italian Catholic priest who fought against mining companies to protect the ancestral lands of the Manobo tribe in the southern Philippines. Affectionately known as "Father Pops," he was buried in a coffin made from a favorite mahogany tree he had planted.

In Thailand, where at least 20 environmental activists have been killed over the past decade, seven hired gunmen were paid $10,000 to kill Thongnak Sawekchinda, a veteran campaigner against polluting, coal-fired factories in his province near Bangkok. Powerful figures believed to have ordered the slaying are yet to be apprehended.

In developing countries, bolder and more numerous activists have come into sharper conflict with governments and their cronies or local and foreign companies, some with low environmental and ethical standards. These are moving in to "industrialize" areas where rights of the local people are traditional rather than clearly defined by modern laws.

"It is a well-known paradox that many of the world's poorest countries are home to the resources that drive the global economy. Now, as the race to secure access to these resources intensifies, it is poor people and activists who increasingly find themselves in the firing line," Global Witness said.

Julian Newman of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said the killings will only get worse because one of the key flashpoints - land ownership - ignites powerful passions.

"To people protecting their lands, their forests, it's very personal, and they suffer when confronted with influential forces who have protection, be it the police in Indonesia or thugs in China," Newman said.

Targeted assassinations, disappearances followed by confirmed deaths, deaths in custody and during clashes with security forces are being reported. The killers are often soldiers, police or private security guards acting on behalf of businesses or governments. Credible investigations are rare; convictions more so.

"It's so easy to get someone killed in some of these countries. Decapitate the leader of the movement and then buy off everyone else - that's standard operating procedure," says Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch.

The countries where environmental killings are most common share similarities: a powerful few, with strong links to officialdom, and many poor and disenfranchised dependent on land or forests for livelihoods, coupled with strong activist movements which are more likely to report the violence.

Environmental groups say it is time to build a comprehensive database of such violence and mount unified campaigns.

"In Asia there has been a rise for some years but this has been off the radar of international NGOs until recently," says Pokpong Lawansiri, Asia head for the Dublin-based Front Line Defenders. "Political rights activists usually have international connections but environmental ones are often teachers, community leaders and villagers, so they have little profile."

Robertson called for "a waves-to-the-beach strategy. It can be small and irregular but it always has to keep coming."

"Without that constant level of concern and anger, things won't change. Governments and companies play for time and for most of the victims and their families time is not on their side," he said.

[whisky_drinker]

Good, the only good enviromentalist is a dead enviromentalists. I have no pity for these intolerant rich young white people who thinkthey know everything and everyone but them is too stupid to know what's good for them.... I hope they all die a painfull aganizing death.

[Michael_H_Anderson]

Keep up the good work, environmentalist-killers! Don't listen to the pathetic Marxism-indoctrinated poor-lil'-white-boy garret-dwelling twentysomething LOSERS, they don't represent anything but their own pathetic, puerile Disneyesque worldview. The anti-civilization whiners have had their moment in the sun and it's time for humanity to get back to the task of getting our crap together - thankfully.

[Enviro_Equipment_Inc]

It's the height of journalistic bias to refer to the death of an environmental activists as "murders" without knowing the circumstances involving the 700+ deaths. While I'm sure the majority of deaths of these activists are indeed murder, they could just as easily be the result of mistaken identity or perhaps seen as trespassers (or even poachers) on private property.

[majoriot]

Who would of thought that environmentalist themselves would be a victim of climate change.
But of course, this is nothing new. Profit before people is the way of the capitalist.

[ArxFerrum]

There is NO excuse for murder but... it seems obvious that some environmental factions and individuals have been trying to impose their views on people of other nations. You go and stick your nose in someone else's affairs and it will occasionally be shot off.

NOTE: Third attempt to offer this comment. My apologies for multiple postings. (Does CBS censor or just work on a Windows 95 server??)

[phil8192]

Good point. It wouldn't be surprising to hear of "environmentalists" and other "activists" getting what's coming to them in the U.S., Canada and western Europe in the near future, since what they're doing is using the environment as a means to promote globalist totalitarianism. Many so-called environmentalists don't give a rip about the environment; they're busybodies and control freaks who want to tell you and me how we are to live our lives.

[ArxFerrum]

There is NO excuse for murder but... it seems obvious that some environmental factions and individuals have been trying to impose their views on people of other nations. You go and stick your nose in someone else's affairs and it will occasionally be shot off.

NOTE: Second effort to submit this comment. My apologies for any doubles.

[ArxFerrum]

There is NO excuse for murder but... it seems obvious that some environmental factions and individuals have been trying to impose their views on people of other nations. You go and stick your nose in someone else's affairs and it will occasionally be shot off.

[lillyhorton]

They buried the Reverand in a mahogany box made from a tree he planted and loved. I bet he would have loved that tree to continue to live representing him on earth. destroying his tree must have been a slap on the face. Honoring him my ***

[marychgo]

We all need to be much more careful consumers. Where was it made? How was it made? At what cost to those who made it, those who live in the area? What are its components? Where were they mined or grown or drilled? Who gets rich because I buy this product?

[griff713]

It's sad to say, but it is a fact - no matter what the beliefs, gold speaks louder than any god. The only religion that is universal in this world is the greed for money. The USA is the penultimate example of that. Think I'm wrong? Why is it that our legislators have had their personal income jump 200% in the last 20 years? Why is it that there are tax cuts for the rich while the middle class gets unemployment? Why is it that there aren't massive import taxes on goods from countries that utilize child labor, that pollute the air, land and sea? We have laws preventing rich corporations from doing so, but we don't have laws preventing them from moving their factories into countries without those laws, and importing the produced goods back to here. All we did with trying to protect our natural resources was show those corporate fat cats how to double their own income, by moving somewhere where labor is pennies compared to dollars here. I'm not saying repeal those laws, but we should put such massive import taxes on those goods that it is no longer financially possible to bring them here.