Human Rights Defenders

The term “human rights defender” (HRD) refers to people or groups who take peaceful actions to promote or protect human rights. “Environmental human rights defender” (EHRD) is an inclusive term referring to a subset of defenders who strive to promote human rights in relation to the environment. HRDs often overlap with other rights-holder constituencies, such as indigenous peoples and forest peoples, who also enjoy specific rights. Environmental human rights defenders, like all human rights defenders, are identified primarily by the actions they take to promote and protect human rights.

Why is it relevant to indigenous peoples and forest peoples?

Indigenous leaders or Indigenous communities, forest peoples, afro-descendant or other leaders and communities, farmers, women, children, environmental journalists, environmental lawyers, conservationists, NGO staff, community organisers, or others can all be human rights defenders. Human rights defenders are crucial in upholding human rights, holding corporations accountable, protecting the global environment, and fighting climate change. 

However, they face significant—and growing—violence, intimidation, criminalisation, and even killings for protesting the harmful impacts of agribusiness, extractive industries, conservation, logging, infrastructure, and energy projects. At least 2,100 environmental human rights defenders have been murdered between 2012 and 2024. Indigenous peoples, in particular, face a vastly disproportionate number of attacks, accounting for over 40% of all fatal attacks in recent years.

Many indigenous and forest peoples defending their territory and their rights have successfully adopted the discourse of human rights defenders to derive support for their struggles and enhance their recognition within the international human rights framework. This enables them to mobilise financial and technical support, access protection measures, and gain assistance from support organisations.