RightsCon 2020: Building alliances & tech solutions to track threats to land & environment defenders

While calls to protect the environment have galvanized broad support in recent years, the violence perpetrated against those who defend it has continued unabated. In 2018, an estimated three land and environment defenders died every week. In 2019, 40 percent of all human rights defenders who were killed worked on land, indigenous peoples' and environmental rights. It is a trend that is expected to be exacerbated by the global pandemic. The need for new strategies, technologies and alliances has become more urgent than ever.

As threats, attacks and the killing of land and environment defenders continue, a priority concern is the lack of regular and reliable documentation of these attacks. This is especially relevant given that where data is available, 75 percent of global killings were proceeded by a non-lethal attack. If incidents are not recorded systematically, it becomes more difficult to analyze trends of vulnerability or formulate better responses, mechanisms and policies. What’s more, this lack of documentation has contributed to near-total levels of impunity.

A number of actors are working to coordinate the tracking of attacks on land and environmental defenders: the data working group of the Defending Land and Environmental Defenders Coalition (DDCoalition) is harmonizing defender data across partners in four pilot countries. Journalists at Tierra de Resistentes have built a database to track incidents across Latin America while the Asian NGO Coalition is building a regional case-tracking system. Meanwhile, the Zero Tolerance Initiative is mobilizing this data globally, raising the political cost of these attacks. This RightsCon panel from July 31, 2020, discusses how these initiatives are working together towards a common goal. It gives an overview of the initiatives, shares preliminary work results and presents opportunities for collaboration.

Co-hosted by International Land Coalition, Business and Human Rights Resource Center, and World Resources Institute.