Berta Cáceres one of hundreds of land protesters murdered in last decade | Environment | The Guardian

8.3.16

Berta Cáceres one of hundreds of land protesters murdered in last decade | Environment | The Guardian - “We are seeing an upsurge in the scramble for land and natural resources, which means more and more companies are encroaching further and further into the lands of indigenous people,” said Billy Kyte, from Global Witness.

Honduras is the most dangerous place to protest against developments, with more deaths per capita than any other country: 101 between 2010 and 2014, according to Global Witness’s report How Many More? At least three of Cáceres’s colleagues, also protesting against the Agua Zarca cascade of four giant hydropower dams, had been murdered previously. “They follow me. They threaten to kill me, to kidnap me, they threaten my family. That is what we face,” said Cáceres in 2014.

Brazil, South America’s biggest country and containing much of the vast Amazon rainforest, suffered the greatest death toll of people defending their lands and the environment, with at least 454 killings from 2002 to 2014. But the violence pre-dates the records assembled by Global Witness, with the infamous murder of Chico Mendes by a rancher occuring back in 1988.