In 2025, environmental and Indigenous rights advocates continued to be among the most targeted human rights defenders globally, despite international court rulings that emphasized governments’ responsibilities to safeguard both the environment and its defenders.
A report released last week by Front Line Defenders, a Dublin-based organization supporting global human rights activists, stated that at least 358 human rights defenders were killed last year.
Of these, nearly 84, or about a quarter, were targeted due to their often-voluntary efforts to protect land and the environment. These killings occurred in countries including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Peru, Philippines, Turkey, Somalia, and Palestine.
Indigenous-rights defenders, who are often involved in environmental issues but categorized separately, accounted for an additional 17 percent of the deaths reported by the group.
In addition to the killings, numerous advocates faced threats and attacks, including surveillance, smear campaigns, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, and murder.
According to the report, there were around 4,000 nonlethal attacks on human rights defenders across 119 countries last year. This number, which includes multiple violations against some individuals, is likely a significant underestimate because many attacks go unreported, and perpetrators rarely face consequences.
The report pointed out that the “imposition of internet blackouts, suppression of media, targeting of documenters, self-censorship, or the total closure of civic space” makes documenting some cases impossible. This situation is particularly true in countries like China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Iran, which are politically restrictive or conflict-riven, or both.
Human rights defenders are individuals who peacefully promote and protect any or all of the rights outlined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Environmental defenders often find themselves at the forefront of conflicts over mining, oil and gas development, logging, and agribusiness, making them vulnerable to retaliation from governments, businesses, and other legal or illegal actors.
Efraín Fueres, an Ecuadorian environmental defender, was among those killed last year. The 46-year-old community leader took part in nationwide protests last fall during a period marked by pro-extractive-industry and authoritarian governmental actions.
Videos shared on social media show Fueres being shot while marching. A military vehicle then approached, and armed officers surrounded Fueres, who lay in the street with a companion kneeling beside him. The officers repeatedly kicked the companion.
Neither the Ecuadorian Consulate in Washington, D.C., nor the country’s public prosecutor’s office responded to requests for comment.
Courts have recognized the crucial role of environmental defenders, affirming that a healthy environment is essential for all human rights, and that governments have legal obligations to address climate change and protect those defenders for that reason. This is supported by a ruling affirming these principles.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights emphasized in a landmark advisory opinion last year that respecting the rights of environmental human rights defenders is vital for strengthening democracy and the rule of law.
The court highlighted the vital role of environmental defenders amid the climate crisis, considering the scale of the challenge and the necessity for public involvement in decision-making processes.
Such court decisions align with a broader legal shift: more than 165 countries now acknowledge the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, providing a robust legal foundation for communities to challenge environmental harm and the systems enabling it.
Nonetheless, environmental defenders are increasingly encountering complex networks of government officials, corporations, criminal groups, and private security forces involved with extractive industries and land development—referred to as “economies of violence” in the report.
“Defenders who challenge land dispossession, extractive industries, or illicit economies often confronted the same networks of power, regardless of whether those activities were formally lawful or criminalised,” the authors wrote.
In Ecuador, environmental defenders explained to Inside Climate News that illegal miners often operate in areas designated for legal mining, creating tensions within communities divided over resource extraction.
The report indicates Ecuador exemplifies a global trend where governments and corporations increasingly use criminal charges, retaliatory lawsuits, and other legal tactics to suppress opposition.
The report authors noted that in Ecuador, most criminalization cases occurred in the context of socio-environmental disputes where mining projects were forced on communities without their free, prior, and informed consent.
