Environmental and territorial defenders in Guatemala face a critical moment as violence targeting them increases across the country. In 2024, at least 20 such defenders were killed for their work, up from four in 2023, according to a report by advocacy NGO Global Witness. The country was second only to Colombia in the number of defenders killed or disappeared, accounting for 13% of the total cases identified worldwide by Global Witness. As a proportion of the country’s population, the number also leaves Guatemala with the highest rate of killings of environmental defenders in the world. The report says that at least 10 of those killed were Indigenous or campesino individuals. Since 2012, Global Witness has documented 106 killings and disappearances of environmental defenders in Guatemala, half of them Indigenous people and a fifth campesinos, who were engaged in defending their rights to land or opposing the extraction of natural resources. Mongabay Latam interviewed the report authors, along with activists and defenders, who agreed that the main factors behind the increase in violence are a land distribution system that has historically benefited the elite, the continued violation of Indigenous peoples’ rights, and the spread of organized crime. The Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) has reported killings and criminalization of its members. Image courtesy of CCDA. The new political landscape When Bernardo Arévalo took office as president in January 2024, he and his party, Movimiento Semilla, had the broad backing of Guatemala’s Indigenous peoples. But this hasn’t translated into a reduction…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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