Around 200 environmental and land defence activists perished worldwide in 2021, with 54 of them dying in Mexico, which overtook the United States as the deadliest nation in the nonpartisan organisation Global Witness’ annual report.
More than 75 percent of the murders occurred in Latin America, where double-digit death tolls were also recorded in Colombia, Brazil, and Nicaragua.
From 30 of these activists died in 2020, it was an increase for Mexico for the third year in a row.
According to the research, ‘the majority of these crimes take place in remote locations and are perpetrated on those who, in many respects, have the least amount of influence.’
Global Witness views its study as a baseline, adding that many murders go undetected, particularly in rural regions and in certain nations, thus ‘our statistics on killings is likely to be an underestimate.’
The victims died fighting resource exploitation and in land disputes. Conflicts over mining were tied to 27 deaths worldwide, the most for any sector.
In Mexico, there were fifteen of those fatalities due to mining.
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