Threats to land and environmental defenders in nature's last strongholds.

Abstract

Land and environmental defenders are a major bulwark against environmental destruction and biodiversity loss resulting from unsustainable nature resource extraction. Resultant conflicts can lead to violence against and deaths of these defenders. Along with mounting environmental pressures, homicides of these defenders are increasing globally. Yet, this issue has only recently started to receive scientific attention. While existing studies indicate the importance of socio-economic processes in driving such murders, spatially explicit global analyses considering environmental components are largely missing. Here, we take a broad spatial approach to assess relative contributions of environmental factors to the killing of environmental defenders. We find higher rates of such homicides are typically found in areas where limited or underutilized resources (e.g., freshwater, land and forests) are more available. Our results point towards a prevalent global land scarcity that results in industries targeting the last remaining strongholds for biodiversity and the environmental defenders within.