Peru - a Tough Place for Environmentalists
As Peru hosts the United Nations climate talks in Lima this week, a report by Global Witness says the country is failing to protect its carbon-rich forests - and the lives of the people who live in them. Illegal loggers were charged with the murders of four indigenous land rights campaigners in September - the latest in a series of killings that make Peru one of the world’s most dangerous places for environmental activism.
The Global Witness Report ‘Peru’s Deadly Environment’ focuses on the killings of environmental and land defenders between 2003 and 2014 and we’ve been able to document that there have been 57 killings of there environmental defenders over the last decade.
What’s quite striking is that the last three or four years have accounted for over 60 percent of the killings, so you’re seeing a massive increase. Overall, this means that Peru is now the fourth most dangerous country on Earth for environmental and land defenders and the second most dangerous in Latin America. It’s also likely that these figures are an underestimation because there are likely still many cases that have not been documented properly or reported on.