At least 81 women have been killed while defending the environment since January 2022 analysis published today shows – a figure researchers suggest is underestimated.

Women environmental defenders (WEDs) were also the victims of displacement, repression, criminal prosecution and physical harassment during the same period.

Environmental conflict occurs across the globe, most frequently around extractivism – the exploitation and removal of natural resources for exportation. Such projects often involve land grabbing and ecological destruction that threaten local communities.

However, accounts of violent retaliation towards female environmental defenders are often not documented due to censorship and lack of data, suggesting the issue is largely underestimated.

Analysing data from the Environmental Justice Atlas, researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and University of Helsinki identified 523 cases of violence against WEDs. The data suggested they were concentrated among mining, agribusiness and industrial conflicts, and predominantly took place in Latin America, Asia and Africa – although six assassinations took place across the US and Europe.

The Philippines proved the most deadly country for female environmental activists, with 19 assassination cases leading to the death of 26 women, including in massacres and serial killings.

Writing in the journal Nature Sustainability, the authors said: ‘While cases in other countries typically targeted individuals, many Philippines cases involved mass violence and serial killings owing to the government falsely ‘red-tagging’ defenders as Communist terrorists.’

The team also highlighted South America as a hotspot for violence, in particular Brazil and Colombia.

‘For years, Brazil has been one of the most violent countries for environmental defenders. Land inequality has been endemic since colonial times owing to power being concentrated among an elite patriarchy openly using violence to deter resistance. 

‘This results in systematic defender killings, which worsened under [Jair] Bolsonaro’s administration, [which was] brutally silencing defenders. Post-election violence continues as anti-dam WED Flávia Amboss Merçom, as well as five others, were killed in a mass shooting on November 25, 2022.

‘WED assassinations in Colombia likewise are situated within a context of insurrections and repression. There has been a wave of recent assassinations of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian defenders carried out by paramilitary groups to the blind eye of the government since the signing of a ‘peace’ agreement in 2016.’

The team notes that, due to a national development plan that promotes foreign extraction, there is ‘typically little to no intervention in violence against WED’ in the country.

In addition to the direct violence suffered by women environmental defenders, the study notes populations are also subjected to slow violence as a result of ecocide-genocide – where people suffer from long-term environmental harms resulting from the extractive activities, such as through water or air pollution.

Overall the number of WED killings closely corresponded to that of men killed during environmental activism.

‘We argue that it is not how many women are killed versus other genders, but rather how women are killed that is gendered,’ researchers said. ‘For instance, slow violence was intertwined with direct violence. 

‘Health impacts including mental problems, industry-related illness or accidents, and malnutrition were often associated with women in cases with contexts with a gendered division of labour and thus gendered exposure and sensitivities to ecological consequences.

‘Specific impacts on women such as sexual violence during environmental conflicts is not only physical, but also reinforces women’s inferior positions and loss of agency/mobility by marking their bodies as less than human. 

‘Extractive industries’ impoverishment of communities makes attaining socio-economic criteria for manhood difficult. Some emasculated men may engage in social ills, increasing women’s burdens and vulnerability to violence.’

In conclusion, the team called for further research into violence towards women environmental defenders, including the difference between how Indigenous and non-Indigenous women are affected.

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