Nature’s Decline Deepens: Insights from the Living Planet Report 2024
29 October 2024
The Living Planet Report 2024 reveals that wildlife populations have dropped 73% on average since 1970. It warns that national governments are failing to meet biodiversity targets and calls for an urgent need to transform our current economic and food systems, but it only skirts around the issue of continued global population growth. Campaigns and Media Officer Madeleine Hewitt dives into the report.
Every two years WWF, in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), publishes an updated Living Planet Report. This is compiled from the Living Planet Index which monitors the size of wildlife populations and how they have changed since 1970.
The Living Planet Report can provide an overall outlook on how biodiversity – a measure of the variability of species on land and in marine environments – is faring on the planet.
WWF’s Living Planet Report 2024 estimates that we have lost 73% of all vertebrate wildlife populations since 1970. That’s nearly three-quarters of all birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Gone in just 50 years. During that time, our population has more than doubled, increasing from 3.7 billion to over 8.1 billion today.
Failing Biodiversity Targets
We recently sponsored our partner, Women for Conservation, to attend COP16 in Cali, Colombia. Governments were tasked with reviewing their commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty signed by almost 200 countries, including the UK, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
However, according to the Living Planet Report, national commitments are falling far short of what’s needed to protect nature.
Currently, over half the Sustainable Development Goals targets for 2030 will be missed. And national biodiversity strategies and action plans are inadequate and lack support.Women for Conservation Team at COP16
Failing biodiversity targets pushes the world toward dangerous ‘tipping points’ as ecosystems reach their natural limits.
For example, the Amazon Rainforest is considered one of the most important areas for biodiversity in the world. But the Amazon is under threat from climate change and increasing deforestation causing reduced rainfall, destabilising the wet conditions needed for a tropical rainforest.
A tipping point looms if humans clear just 20–25% of the Amazon rainforest – dangerously close, with an estimated 14–17% already deforested. Crossing the Amazon’s tipping point would be disastrous for the millions of people and species dependent upon the rainforest.
Governments are also failing to meet their climate commitments to limit average global temperature rises to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Existing national climate commitments would lead to an average global temperature increase of 3°C. This will have catastrophic effects for people and the planet.
Unsustainable Food Systems
Experts identify food production as one of the main drivers of nature decline. It’s the leading cause of habitat loss – with forests, wetlands, and other biodiversity hotspots cleared for agriculture.
Humans use over 40% of habitable land for food production. Crop production accounts for 70% of freshwater use. And the entire food sector is responsible for over a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
Our current food systems are environmentally destructive, unsustainable, and plagued by structural inequalities. Despite record food production, 735 million people still go hungry, whilst obesity rates rise elsewhere.
Continued global population growth places even more pressure to intensify and expand agriculture causing further nature loss.
The Living Planet Report 2024 includes a bold call to action for the world to re-examine its current economic systems. To move away from economic systems focused on the extraction and overexploitation of natural resources for profit to a system that values nature.
In recent weeks, we’ve been exploring alternative economic models that move away from GDP as the sole marker of economic success. We have looked at many models that prioritise people’s well-being and the environment instead.
The Living Planet Report 2024 joins many alternative economists in urgently calling for a better economic system that benefits both people and the planet.
Different approaches to economic growth will be necessary to address the global goals depending on a country’s economic status. We need to move beyond economic wealth and GDP as the principal measures of progress, toward a well-being economy that promotes sufficient shared prosperity and living in a way that regenerates nature and stabilizes the climate.Living Planet Report 2024
What about population?
Frustratingly, the Living Planet Report only includes a fleeting reference to population growth as an underlying cause of continued nature decline.
…the root causes of nature degradation. These include consumption and production patterns, human population dynamics and trends, trade, technological innovations, and inadequate or failed local to global governance.Living Planet Report 2024
Even though population growth underpins multiple drivers of habitat loss including:
More people need ever more food. Land clearing and pesticide run-off from intensive agriculture causes up to 80% of extinction threats to mammal and bird species.
More people need ever more space. Damaging human activity continues to encroach on natural environments, with humans expected to expand into 50% more land by 2070 – increasing human-wildlife conflict and nature loss.
More people need more things. Our population’s relentless consumption of resources such as timber, oil and minerals is continuing to destroy natural habitats around the globe.
The continued reluctance to address population growth as a driver of biodiversity loss only further stalls progress. It is especially frustrating when the positive solutions available to address population include the holistic Population Health Environment (PHE) approach. PHE improves health outcomes for the local community and protects natural habitats.
For this reason, we’re proud to have sent our partners, Women for Conservation, to COP16 to promote the benefits of the PHE approach. And we’ll continue our work to emphasise why population matters when it comes to protecting biodiversity.
It has been growing there for 55 million years. The human race was around 1 million 10,000 years BC. Since the industrial revolution we are now over 8 billion and have wrought irrevocable destruction to the planet.
The Amazon rainforest spreads across nine countries namely Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Guyana, and French Guiana. Some of these countries hold a bigger part of the Amazon forest than others.
The tragedy of the fires in the precious wetlands of the Pantanal, killing rare wildlife, has been so appalling. All caused by an ever warming planet due to deforestation and fossil fuel use.
The insanity of global corporates accelerating their plundering of the Amazon rainforest through aggressive tactics, bribery and sheer criminal activities is now so blatant it is as if these corporates are driving a dagger into our ecosystem’s heart.
Since the early 2000s the engineering firm, Odebrecht S.A, has been busy committing crimes and finally exposed for its criminal behaviour over the past 15 years.
The company was founded in 1944 and is headquartered in Salvador da Bahia and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
After Marcelo Odebrecht served his jail sentence he is now renaming the business:
Now Novonor “is born as the holding company of a business group with 25,000 employees and six companies” working in engineering, construction, urban mobility and roads, oil and gas, real estate, petrochemicals and the naval industry, the statement said.
Who has been bribed by Odebrecht?
of his links to Odebrecht corruption.
Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia committed suicide in April when police went to his home to arrest him on charges related to Odebrecht. Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra and three former presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Ollanta Humala and Alejandro Toledo, are all under investigation in connection with the Odebrecht scandal. Humala has been indicted on corruption charges.
Politicians in Guatemala and Colombia have been engulfed, too.
Successive Peruvian Presidents have been investigated for accepting lucrative bribes from Odebrecht, for example, to approve the building of the deforestation causing Oceanic Highway:
The shrinking Amazon has seen indigenous tribes losing their land where they lived as guardians of the forest. Rare plants have been destroyed, many providing important medicines to the pharmaceutical research labs. All the wild animals among their specialised habitats are disregarded as the loggers cut down this ancient forest.
And all this activity is to contribute wealth to those who deny their activities are accelerating climate change catastrophes around the world.
As the oceans become too hot we see catastrophic weather events around the world occurring so fast alerts cannot be sent out in time to protect people from the horrific consequences.
But corporates are blinded by their greed, intent on their plunder. Odebrecht is only one corporate with blood on its hands.
Corporations should be our servants, not our masters.
The vast majority of Americans would find abhorrent a Republican-dominated Supreme Court that comes down repeatedly for corporations against workers, consumers, and the environment, and, that allows unlimited corporate campaign contributions and unbridled corporate power over ordinary voters.
Nader, 3rd Nov 2024
Corruption linked to industry, particularly the construction industry, is nothing new. Here is a 2022 UK article about tight rules and vigilance required to meet the problem head on:
I am reading ‘Who could ever love you’ by Mary Trump. I have just read a chilling few paragraphs which are even more relevant now than in 2017, as the Israeli war on Palestinians and Lebanese rages forever on:
A week after he took office, I was sitting on the couch in my living room, doom-scrolling through Twitter with MSNBC on in the background, when the news about Donald’s Muslim ban broke. I jumped to my feet and paced around the room as the chaos unfolded and the details, as muddled as they were at first, made clear just how far-reaching and depraved the ban was meant to be, thanks to its chief architect, the unspeakably vile Stephen Miller. The contours of the horrors Donald and his chosen deputies planned to inflict on us started to come into focus less than a week after the inauguration. I was staring at the TV in disbelief from my position in the middle of the room when my daughter, a sophomore in high school, came through the front door. I didn’t ask her how school was; I didn’t ask if she wanted a snack or if she had any homework. I said, “Av, do you understand what’s going on?” My voice was raised, and she took a step back. “This is fascism.” I gestured at the television and she looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “He’s a fascist.” That’s when I recognized the extent to which my fate had become intertwined with Donald’s. Beyond the election itself, that was the first chink in the armor of American democracy (to the extent it existed), which wasn’t nearly as strong as many of us had believed. It wasn’t immediately clear, but in the days that followed, the Republicans and the Supreme Court revealed that they were not just inclined but eager to let Donald have his way and, in many cases, enable him. I watched every day as things got worse. Each new transgression landed like a blow. This was America now. At random moments throughout the days that followed, I thought, How is it possible? How can this have happened? I mean, Jesus Christ, it’s Donald. Donald! Whenever this reality became conscious, a jolt hit me between the ribs and I felt like I was hallucinating. But I was screaming into a void. The least worthy, the most vile among us had won—again. He was going to get away with it—again. I could barely move beneath the weight of the unfairness of it all.
Wouldn’t you think the Republican Party, that is as gung-ho for Empire and Genocide as the Democratic Party, but domestically is blatantly open about its policies against women, children, workers, the environment, climate crisis, public lands, public education and fair share taxes for the wealthy would be easy to defeat? Not when you see how the Dems, whose campaigns are controlled by corporate-conflicted political consultants using corporate campaign cash, keep making the election razor close.
In 1988, the formidable spouse of Senator Pat Moynihan – Elizabeth Moynihan – told me “Ralph, these consultants are destroying the Democratic Party,” right after she fired them and took over managing Pat’s last re-election campaign.
Elizabeth Moynihan’s observation is true now more than ever, as corporate money looms gigantically over all elections with no limits on how much these PACs can spend.
Still, with three and a half weeks before November 5th, the Party of the Donkey can lighten some of its self-imposed burdens and prevail in congressional races and the presidential race.
First, Bibi-Biden and Bibi-Blinken have to end their serfdom and stand up for American interests. Tell Netanyahu to stop dissembling, agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, and open up Gaza to all those thousands of U.S.-funded humanitarian aid trucks with food, medicine, water, and other critical supplies. Tell him to open up occupied Gaza to American reporters – along with Israeli and other nations’ journalists – prohibited from independently reporting the realities of the genocidal destruction of that Palestinian enclave and its dying 2.3 million people. Otherwise, no more U.S. weapons of mass destruction, no more vetoes at the UN, and no more arm-twisting other critical countries. These just and proper moves could be vote-getters in swing states.
Second, give the media vote-getting authentic commitments to benefit millions of voters. A serious commitment to a living wage would move millions of low-paid workers to vote.
Raise Social Security benefits, frozen for over 50 years. This would get the attention of 65 million elderly (See the Social Security 2100 Act, a bill introduced on July 12, 2023, by Congressman John B. Larson and Senator Richard Blumenthal).
Demand with specifics the raising of taxes on the wealthy. This taps into the 85% of the people backing such a decision.
Crack down on corporate crooks, with specific illustrations on how they harm daily lives and livelihoods. This issue comes in with heavy left-right support.
Respect the millions of midnight shift workers who keep our society going while we sleep. Campaign before midnight shifts at hospitals, factories, all-night stores, police, and fire stations.
The few Democratic operatives who approve the strategies, tactics and messaging are notoriously tone-deaf, defiantly incommunicado to citizen group input – activists who know how, what, and when to communicate to allworkers, consumers, patients, and parents, regardless of their labels. (For effective elaborations, see winningamerica.net).
The Dems have huge amounts of money and when used to pay for ads, often vacuous and irritatingly repetitive, these consulting profiters reap 15% commissions. More of this money should be used for an advanced ground game of locating voters, persuading them, transporting them to the polls if need be, and festively celebrating with a snack or supper. Australians, where voting (for anyone) is a civic duty, are known to make voting a joyous social occasion.
Massively assailing Trump for his lawbreaking, his lies, his bigotry, his corruption, his delusions, his incitements to violence, voter suppression and precinct worker harassment does not seem to diminish support from his base. Why not concentrate laser-like on getting out more of the 80 or 90 million non-voters, instead of pushing off the ballot and harassing the small Green Party with frivolous suits and political bigotry?
Many of these non-voting eligible voters are low-wage workers. Listen to Rev. William Barber who says just increasing their vote by ten to fifteen percent from 2020 would win the election. Few people have interacted with as many impoverished Americans as has Rev. Barber. Even fewer can match the details and inspirations of his oratory. (See, breachrepairers.org).
The media covers the horse race – give them more horses. They cover the money raised – tell them you’re using it for people-to-people voter turnout behind explicit progressive mandates. The media covers spontaneous comments that magnify as faux pas – give them spontaneous statements that mean something – like increasing the number of federal cops on the corporate crime beat.
Or support the expanding interstate compact of states that gives the anti-democratic Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins the national presidential vote (See, NationalPopularVote.com).
Or why not support more consumer cooperatives, or repeal handcuffs on union organizing and expression embodied by the notorious Taft-Hartley Act of 1947?
The media gets bored with the same old stump speech day after day. Give them some variety that invigorates a democratic society. Especially tell them ways you would empower the powerless people to overcome corporatism, apathy, indifference, and withdrawal from elections and politics. These could be short educational addresses on TV.
and, knowing our refusal to move away from dependence on fossil fuels has increased ocean temperatures. We know the high temperatures of the water in the Gulf are causing the intensification of hurricanes in the region.
It is as if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
It will cost billions of dollars to recover from constant and increasing catastrophe from exceptional wildfires, floods, tornadoes, cat 5 hurricanes, droughts……But the conversation runs in parallel to the fossil fuel industry touting their billion dollar productions – plus demand to increase exploration and more DRILLING.
The fossil fuel industry does not help the victims. As people can’t afford insurance, many are made homeless after losing their entire home and belongings. Then new homes are built on the spot where their beloved home once stood, but they can’t afford the bigger home because they are being replaced by richer folk.
There needs to be intense and determined priority given to this subject, worldwide. Where there is Best Practise it must be shared, and constructive action must be taken which does not involve exploitation of vulnerable people.
Best Practise currently costs too much for the vulnerable, but if you can afford it, Hunters Point, Florida weathered the Helene and Milton hurricanes:
As I write this El Niño – Southern Oscillation has left Ghana and Ivory Coast with cocoa bean plantations mostly decimated, their main processing factories having to close, with hopes they may recover by next season.
This has impacted all chocolate producers around the world, causing the price of chocolate to double. In Germany, they are experimenting with syntheticaly made chocolate.
Rather than give up, Ghana has seized the opportunity to build their own chocolate production, using what beans they have:
They are beginning to create a demand for their own brand which is adding value to their skills in forming this company.
For those addicted to dark chocolate (I’m one of them!) I have had to do without as the price is just too high.
I realise that higher prices of many foods will now be something we cannot avoid by ‘shopping around’…..climate change is beginning to impact more and more of our daily lives and we have done nothing to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, we just pretend we are doing something with marketing ‘transitional’ stages as if that really is a significant thing.
For example, see Ann Pettifor, Substack:
The Labour government in its manifesto promised to make “Britain a clean energy superpower” yet has agreed to invest £22 billion to ‘capture’ CO2 and extend the output, profits and dividends of global oil company shareholders – like Norwegian state-owned Equinor and Eni – for 25 years. A deal that by the way, has the support of the union of high paid oil rig workers.
From ‘Capitalism’s Attack on Time and Nature, why governments and big oil cannot face the future’, by Ann Pettifor, Substack, Oct 7th 2024
The higher you live, the more likely you are to experience impacts of climate change, as these impacts are increasing at a more rapid rate in recent years than human experience can adapt to.
I only live 900ft above sea level in the Scottish Borders, but the changes in the last few years are affecting the ecosystem around me. So I read this article on the subject:
I was seeing grave consequences of Hurricane Helene on Asheville nestled below the Blue Mountains in the Appalachian range. At the same time, those living in Nepal in the Himalayas were experiencing similar devastation when huge floods roared through their city of Kathmandu.
The hills around me are not mountainous but the elevation is such that alpine plants grow here.
The article explains:
With mountains constituting 25% of the Earth’s land surface, their role in our climatic system is as expansive as it is crucial.
The higher the elevation the greater the chance of precipitation:
The orographic effect is instrumental in fostering verdant landscapes along the windward slopes of mountain ranges. Ascending air masses, upon elevation, undergo cooling and condensation, culminating in cloud formation and consequential intensified precipitation. Such phenomena elevate mountain precipitation levels beyond what would manifest without these significant geological features. An exemplary observation of this can be made within the verdant Appalachians, where the lushness is directly attributable to this very effect.
It is the very lushness which attracts people to live in such stunning landscapes. Asheville was hit by devastating floods in 1916, and they have a memorial to those who died as a result of inescapable muddy torrents. They were struck again in 2004, then 2021. They dwell in a geological bowl, with two major rivers, the French Broad and the Swannanoia intersecting and always vulnerable to flooding.
On the lee side of the slopes conditions are arid. So Asheville is constantly promoted as this beautiful place to live where forests won’t burn and landscapes of flowing rivers, fresh clean air and community living are magnets for those escaping harsher environments.
The article continues:
The disparity in mountain temperature variations is starkly presented when comparing Asheville, NC’s average annual temperature of 56.5°F to Mount Mitchell’s 42.6°F. High-resolution data accentuate such temperature fluctuation with altitude, emphasizing elevation’s pivotal role in climatic differentiation.
As the Anthropocene era shows, human activity has caused rapid warming of the earth’s atmosphere and upset the balance of our ecosystem.
Alpine zones reveal a poignant interplay between natural forces and human activity. Human impact alters approximately 57% of mountainous regions, persisting even beyond 4500 meters. These areas, crucial for climate and environmental sustainability, face heightened scrutiny owing to their vulnerability.
As the mountains warm, glaciers melt. Snow leopards decline to near extinction and polar bears in the Arctic circle struggle to exist in melting ice flows.
Borders have recently changed as, for example where the Matterhorn Peak in the Swiss Alps has suffered warming and the glaciers no longer play their vital role of replenishing vital freshwater to lower slopes. See GLAMOS, the Swiss University glacier monitoring network.
Many places which were idyllic for humans are no longer safe for any living thing to have a chance to adapt to, everything is in a momentum of loss as we humans refuse to work out how to live without fossil fuels.
Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) Canada is a registered Canadian charity widely recognized as the pre-eminent authority on the bird-building collision issue.
Each year in Canada, around 25 million migratory birds die as a direct result of collisions with buildings. We can only expect that number to grow unless we all work together to help mitigate local biodiversity loss through urban development that considers wildlife species.
For almost 30 years, FLAP Canada has engaged millions of people with dozens of campaigns and initiatives with one goal: keep birds safe from deadly collisions with buildings.
Start today and protect birds in your locality by following advice in the above link.
When Worlds Collide’ by Patricia Homonylo. Overall Winner and Bird Photographer of the Year 2024.
All these dead birds, who met their deaths colliding with unsafe windows and buildings in Toronto, were placed together to form this image which shocks at first sight.
Bird Photographer of the Year
2024 Winners
With over 23,000 images entered into the competition this year, Bird Photographer of the Year is pleased to present our winners. Celebrating bird life from around the world, these images comprise some of the most incredible bird photos in the world taken by talented photographers, whilst also raising vital funds for our partner charity Birds on the Brink.
‘When Worlds Collide’ by Patricia Homonylo. Overall Winner and Bird Photographer of the Year 2024.
Taking the title of Bird Photographer of the Year, our Overall Winner is ‘When Worlds Collide’ by Patricia Homonylo. An impactful image showing over 4,000 birds that died colliding with windows in Toronto.
Homonylo wins the top prize of £3,500 and the prestigious title. Her image also won Gold Award in the Conservation (Single Image) category.
“Each year more than one billion birds die in North America alone due to collisions with windows,” says Homonylo. “I am a conservation photojournalist and have been working with the Fatal Light Awareness Program, where we save window-collision survivors in Toronto. Sadly, most of the birds we find are already dead. They are collected and at the end of the year we create this impactful display to honour the lives lost and increase public awareness.”
Reflected light poses a severe threat to birds. To a bird, a reflective surface like a window can appear to be a continuation of the landscape that is behind them. Consequently, birds may fly straight into windows at full speed. FLAP encourages people and businesses to use bird-safe films on windows, bird screens, or window grills. More information can be found on FLAP’s website.
I just photographed a Peacock and a Red Admiral on my Autumn Glory.
19th September 2024
In previous years there could be at least 12 to 20 on this plant. These two are the highest count in a day for this year. I am distraught. Seeing butterflies all my life has always lifted my spirits, no matter what adversity life throws at me.
So I hoped this was something to do with living where I do after unseasonal and turbulent weather all year. But no. I read in my Butterfly Conservation news this reproduced article:
Wondering where all the butterflies have gone? You’re not alone.
In 2024, we’ve seen butterfly numbers fall across the UK. With 80% of butterflies having declined since the 1970s and a third of moth numbers having fallen in that same period, the time has come to tell the Government enough is enough.
Our message to Government
We’re calling on the Government to:
Declare a nature emergency
Implement an immediate and permanent ban on butterfly-harming neonicotinoid pesticides, without exceptions.
If you agree, sign our letter and join leading conservation figures in calling on the Government to take action now.
And we know pesticides are being used extensively in gardens and farmland. But also climate change plays an obvious role. In a link from 2018 National Geographic pointed out the impact of lack of habitat due to climate change disruption which cut the Monarch butterfly population in Mexico drastically:
And activists try in vain to fight against big banks funding these operations:
Mana Pools National Park (219,600 ha) forms part of a natural World Heritage Site (WHS) that was inscribed based on its intact wilderness and beauty in 1984. This 676,600 ha WHS also encompasses the Sapi Safari Area (118,000 ha) and Chewore Safari Area (339,000 ha). Mana Pools is a Key Biodiversity Area, home to remarkable wildlife including iconic species such as elephants, buffalos, and lion in addition to a variety of plans game, leopards and cheetahs, and many resident and migratory birds, with over 450 bird species recorded. Mana Pools National Park was also designated as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention in 2013. The site’s pristine ecosystem is an important tourist attraction and crucial for Zimbabwe’s tourism industry.
The Mana Pools World Heritage Site, part of the larger Middle Zambezi Biosphere Reserve, is located directly opposite the Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia. The Lower Zambezi National Park is also currently under serious threat by the development of an open pit copper mine in the middle of the national park. There are grave concerns around the overall effect of large-scale mining in this ecologically sensitive area which would also invariably impact the Mana Pools World Heritage Site.
Growing Threat
Despite its significance, Mana Pools is now under growing threat of damaging developments, particularly oil and gas exploration. In a gazette notice on 28th April 2023, the Zimbabwean Ministry of Mines and Mining Development announced that Shalom Mining Corporation Pvt Ltd had applied for a licence to prospect for oil and natural gas in an area of very high conservation value contiguous to Mana Pools. If allowed to go ahead, this development potentially poses a serious risk to the adjacent World Heritage Site and Ramsar Site, in addition to the damage it might cause within the proposed prospecting area itself.
In response to the oil and gas prospecting threat, BirdLife partners in Southern Africa put together a strong objection to the proposal. BirdLife Zimbabwe (BirdLife partner in Zimbabwe) and BirdWatch Zambia (BirdLife in Zambia) submitted it to the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development of Zimbabwe. The letter was also shared with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the IUCN World Heritage Programme, and the Secretariats of the Convention on Migratory Species and Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.
“Zimbabwe and Zambia have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding to set up the Lower Zambezi Mana Pools Transfrontier Conservation Area to enhance wildlife conservation. In a report by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, “the agreement is set to enhance ecosystem integrity and natural ecological processes by harmonising environmental management procedures” With so much at stake, we implore the Zimbabwe Ministry of Mines and Mining Development to turn down the prospecting application and the Governments of Zimbabwe and Zambia to work together to protect the intact ecosystem of the Zambezi comprising both Mana Pools and Lower Zambezi National Park” , said Julia Pierini, CEO BirdLife Zimbabwe.
“Mana Pools in Zimbabwe holds immense ecological importance, interconnecting with the Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia. The proposed oil exploration programme by Shalom Mining, threatens this wildlife haven, and would upend the delicate balance of this critical ecosystem” said Daniel Phiri, National Coordinator, BirdWatch Zambia.
“Mana Pools in Zimbabwe holds immense ecological importance, interconnecting with the Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia. The proposed oil exploration programme by Shalom Mining, threatens this wildlife haven, and would upend the delicate balance of this critical ecosystem”
Daniel Phiri, National Coordinator, BirdWatch Zambia.
We are plundering Africa yet again and the world is on fire, glaciers are melting at great speed, floods are drowning people and displacing millions. Freak weather is impacting the planet so fast resilience measures cannot be laid down fast enough.
An estimated 196 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2023 around the world, according to a new Global Witness report published today
The new figures take the total number of defenders killed between 2012 to 2023 to 2,106
For the second year running, Colombia had the highest number of killings worldwide – with a record 79 defenders killed last year, followed by Brazil (25), Mexico (18) and Honduras (18)
Once again, Latin America had the highest number of recorded killings worldwide, with 166 killings overall – 54 killings across Mexico and Central America and 112 in South America
Environmental defenders are also being increasingly subject to range of tactics for silencing those who speak out for the planet across Asia, the UK, EU and US
Tuesday 10 September 2024, London – At least 196 land and environmental defenders were killed last year for trying to protect their homes, community or the planet, according to a new report by Global Witness released today, working in collaboration with global partners. The new figures bring the total number of defender killings to 2,106 between 2012 and 2023.
Overall, Colombia was found to be the deadliest country in the world, with 79 deaths in total last year – compared to 60 in 2022, and 33 in 2021. This is the most defenders killed in one country in a single year Global Witness has ever recorded. With 461 killings from 2012 to 2023, Colombia has the highest number of reported environmental defender killings globally on record.
Other deadly countries in Latin America include Brazil, with 25 killings last year, and Mexico and Honduras, which both had 18 killings.
Central America has emerged as one of the most dangerous places in the world for defenders. With 18 defenders killed in Honduras, the country had the highest number of killings per capita in 2023. A total of 10 defenders were also killed in Nicaragua last year, while four were killed in Guatemala, and four in Panama.
Worldwide, Indigenous Peoples and Afrodescendents continue to be disproportionately targeted, accounting for 49% of total murders.
Laura Furones, Lead Author and Senior Advisor to the Land and Environmental Defenders Campaign at Global Witness said:
“As the climate crisis accelerates, those who use their voice to courageously defend our planet are met with violence, intimidation, and murder. Our data shows that the number of killings remains alarmingly high, a situation that is simply unacceptable.
“Governments cannot stand idly by; they must take decisive action to protect defenders and to address the underlying drivers of violence against them. Activists and their communities are essential in efforts to prevent and remedy harms caused by climate damaging industries. We cannot afford to, nor should we tolerate, losing any more lives.”
While establishing a direct relationship between the murder of a defender and specific corporate interests remains difficult, Global Witness identified mining as the biggest industry driver by far, with 25 defenders killed after opposing mining operations in 2023. Other industries include fishing (5), logging (5), agribusiness (4), roads and infrastructure (4) and hydropower (2).
In total, 23 of the 25 mining-related killings globally last year happened in Latin America. But more than 40% of all mining-related killings between 2012 and 2023 occurred in Asia – home to significant natural reserves of key critical minerals vital for clean energy technologies.
As well as highlighting the number of killings worldwide, the report unearths wider trends in non-lethal attacks and their harmful impacts on communities globally. It highlights cases of enforced disappearances and abductions, pointed tactics used in both the Philippines and Mexico in particular, as well as the wider use of criminalisation as a tactic to silence activists across the world.
The report also explores the crackdown on environmental activists across the UK, Europe and the US, where laws are increasingly being weaponised against defenders, and harsh sentences are more frequently imposed on those who have played a role in climate protests. The findings form part of a concerning trend of criminalisation cases emerging worldwide.
Jonila Castro, a Filipino activist who was abducted by the Philippines military in 2023 and currently facing criminalisation, featured in the report, said:
“Even after our release from abduction, threats continued. We are facing difficulties in returning to our homes and communities. We are still experiencing surveillance, red-tagging, and intimidation. Attacks to silence environmental defenders challenge our advocacy for environmental protection and people’s rights.
“Environmental devastation and human rights violations are interconnected, both sustained by governments and the extractive systems they defend. Our experience highlights the urgent need for stronger protection and recognition of community activists and environmental defenders in the global fight for climate justice.”
Despite the escalating climate crisis – and governments pledging to achieve the Paris Agreement target of 1.5C – land and environmental defenders are being increasingly subject to a wide range of attacks to stop their efforts to protect the planet. At least 1,500 defenders have been killed since the adoption of the Paris Agreement on 12 December 2015.
Nonhle Mbuthuma, author of the report’s foreword and Goldman Environmental Prize Winner 2024, said:
“Across every corner of the globe, those who dare to expose the devastating impact of extractive industries—deforestation, pollution, and land grabbing—are met with violence and intimidation. This is especially true for Indigenous Peoples, who are essential in the fight against climate change, yet are disproportionately targeted year after year.
“Yet the brutality of these attacks reveals something profound: the power that ordinary people wield when they unite for justice. Leaders have a duty to listen and ensure that land and environmental defenders can speak out, everywhere, without fear of reprisal. This responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of every wealthy and resource-rich nation worldwide
borderslynn 
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