Latin America accounted for 85% of environmental defender killings in 2025, report says

Among those killed was Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva, a 36-year-old member of Brazil’s Guarani Kaiowa Indigenous people who was shot during an armed attack on his community in Mato Grosso do Sul in November. His community has been involved in a long-running struggle to reclaim ancestral territory.

Together, Colombia and Brazil accounted for 52% of all killings documented globally.

The worldwide toll fell for a second consecutive year, but the report cautioned that the decline does not necessarily mean environmental defenders are becoming safer. The group says killings remain significantly underreported, while land disputes, organized crime and competition over resources are increasingly converging in regions where communities are trying to protect forests, rivers and ancestral territories.

The group documented 142 killings and four disappearances in 2024 and 196 killings in 2023. At the country level, however, the trends varied sharply.

Killings fell in Colombia from 48 in 2024 to 39 last year and in Mexico from 19 to 10. In Brazil, they more than doubled from 12 to 26, while Honduras also recorded twice as many killings, with 12.

The report documented 2,375 killings and disappearances of land and environmental defenders since the organization began tracking them in 2012, one of the few efforts to systematically compile such cases worldwide. Global Witness works with more than 30 organizations in over 20 countries and checks cases against sources including media reports and judicial records.

Indigenous people and farmers bear the brunt

More than three-quarters of those killed in 2025 were Indigenous people, small-scale farmers or Afro-descendants, according to the report. Forty-seven victims were small-scale farmers and 44 were Indigenous. Seven of the Indigenous victims were members of community guard systems established to protect their territories.

Land disputes were linked to 84 killings, more than half the global total. Mining and extractive industries were associated with 11 deaths, logging with eight and agribusiness with six.

Organized crime and hitmen were suspected of involvement in more than a third of killings, according to Global Witness, reflecting what it described as an increasing overlap between criminal activity and the exploitation of land and natural resources.

Almost half of the 39 defenders killed in Colombia were Indigenous and another 15 were small-scale farmers. Thirty-five deaths were linked to land conflicts. The advocacy group identified suspected links to organized crime in 17 killings and another five to contract killers.

Thirteen of the killings happened in the southwestern department of Cauca, including four members of Indigenous Guard, community-led groups that patrol and protect Indigenous territories. The report documented 171 defender killings in Cauca since 2012, more than in any other Colombian department.

Astrid Torres, coordinator of the Colombian advocacy group Somos Defensores, said Indigenous authorities can come into conflict with armed groups seeking to control territory for drug trafficking and other illicit activities.

“They want to impose their order against the interests of the communities and their own authorities,” Torres said.

The region’s location near the Ecuadorian border and Pacific trafficking routes has made it strategic for armed groups involved in the cocaine trade.

Brazil sees a sharp increase in killings

The 26 killings documented in Brazil were more than double the 12 recorded a year earlier.

Eleven of those killed were small-scale farmers and seven were Indigenous. Most cases involved demands for recognition of ancestral territories or land reform, with half concentrated in the Amazon states of Rondonia and Para, where illegal logging and mining, cattle ranching and agricultural expansion have contributed to longstanding land conflicts.

The increase came despite greater Indigenous participation and commitments on land rights at last year’s COP30 climate summit in the Amazonian city of Belem. Brazil announced the titling of 10 Indigenous territories during the summit, though hundreds of applications remain pending.

Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples told The Associated Press in a written response that reducing violence against Indigenous communities requires securing their territories, combating invasions and illegal activities and holding those responsible for crimes accountable. It said the government has resumed demarcating Indigenous lands and has carried out operations to remove outsiders from 12 territories, benefiting more than 67,000 Indigenous people.

Threats extend beyond Latin America

Killings were documented across 15 countries in 2025.

Asia accounted for 12% of the global total. The Philippines recorded 12 killings, the highest number outside Latin America, and the report said five involved suspected participation by the military amid counterinsurgency operations. Killings were also documented in India, Indonesia, Turkey, Guatemala, Ecuador, Nicaragua and France.

In Africa, three killings were verified — two in Tanzania and one in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report cautioned that armed conflict, restrictions on civil society and insecurity make attacks especially difficult to document there.

In Congo, journalist Fiston Wilondja Mazambi was found dead in Bukavu after investigating alleged illegal gold mining by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group. Global Witness has recorded 79 killings of defenders in Congo since 2012, the highest total it has documented in Africa.

The report also focuses on community-led protection strategies being adopted as Indigenous groups respond to threats that governments have often failed to contain. They include territorial patrols, early warning systems and community monitoring networks.

In Peru, where four defenders were killed last year, the report highlights the Kakataibo Indigenous Guard, whose members patrol Amazonian territory threatened by illegal coca cultivation and organized crime.

“Defending our territory is important to us as a community and as a people, and we’re proud to support the climate that we all depend on,” Segundo Ispón, commander of the Kakataibo Indigenous Guard, said in a statement. “But for this next generation coming up, the work is more dangerous than ever.” ___

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