\n<\/p>\n
O<\/span>ne day last November, Julia Chu\u00f1il called for her dog, Cholito, and they set off into the woods around her home to search for lost livestock. The animals returned but Chu\u00f1il, who was 72 at the time, and Cholito did not.<\/p>\n More than 100 people joined her family in a search lasting weeks in the steep, wet and densely overgrown terrain of Chile\u2019s ancient Valdivian forest. After a month, they even kept an eye on vultures for any grim signs. But they found no trace of Chu\u00f1il.<\/p>\n Chu\u00f1il is one of 146 land and environmental defenders who were killed or disappeared around the world last year, according to a report by the campaign group Global Witness. About a third of those, like Chu\u00f1il, were from Indigenous communities \u2013 a heavy toll for groups who collectively make up just 6% of the global population.<\/p>\n Chu\u00f1il, a leader of Chile\u2019s indigenous Mapuche, was living on disputed land. Ten years ago she had moved on to Reserva Cora, a 900-hectare (2,200-acre) portion of the ancient Valdivian forest 500 miles south of Santiago, which her people claimed as an ancestral territory.<\/p>\n She spent years campaigning to secure land rights over the site for her community. But the site\u2019s nominal owner, the descendant of settlers, refused to relinquish control. He wanted the site for logging \u2013 Chile is a major supplier of wood to the US \u2013 and he wanted rid of Chu\u00f1il. Before she vanished, Chu\u00f1il told supporters: \u201cIf anything happens to me, you already know who did it.\u201d<\/p>\n Global Witness started documenting cases of killings and disappearances of land and environmental defenders in 2012. Since then it has collated a total of 2,253 cases. For the past decade, the most dangerous place has been Latin America. In 2024 it accounted for 82% of cases, including 45 Indigenous people.<\/p>\n \u201cLand conflict is at the heart of violence against defenders, and Indigenous peoples are paying the highest price,\u201d said Javier Garate, a senior policy adviser at Global Witness. \u201cCommunities with ancestral connections to land often form the frontline of resistance when their territories come under threat from exploitation and encroachment. But despite their critical role, they are frequently denied recognition and justice, and subjected to serious danger for defending their rightful lands.\u201d<\/p>\n Chu\u00f1il\u2019s was the only case recorded in her country last year, although it fitted a pattern of the targeting of Mapuche activists in Chile. Colombia recorded 48 cases, making it the deadliest country overall for environmental defenders, followed by Guatemala with 20, the deadliest country per capita. Mexico had 19 cases, putting it in third place overall.<\/p>\n Under-reporting remains an issue, particularly in Asia and Africa, which registered 16 and nine cases respectively, Global Witness said. Overall, last year the fewest cases of killings and disappearances of environmental defenders were registered for a decade.<\/p>\n Laura Furones, who led the research for Global Witness, said: \u201cI would also like to be able to tell you that this implies a decrease in violence and an improvement in the conditions for defenders, but unfortunately that\u2019s not the case. Human rights defenders face realities of violence that go far beyond murder. What violence often does is evolve, become more sophisticated, change its face.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Chu\u00f1il\u2019s family have continued to pursue justice but their advocacy has made them a target of threats and intimidation, too. In April, two animals from Chu\u00f1il\u2019s home that they had planned to auction to fund legal costs were found killed, one shot and one poisoned. \u201cIt is, above all, a deliberate attempt to prevent us from fighting this case,\u201d her son Pablo San Mart\u00edn told Global Witness.<\/p>\n The group\u2019s report calls on governments to act to end the impunity of the killers of environmental defenders by addressing the lack of rights defenders have over land and territory, strengthening weak national legal systems, and ensuring defenders at risk are given adequate state protection.<\/p>\n \u201cAll we are asking for is a full, fair investigation to take place,\u201d San Mart\u00edn said of his mother\u2019s case. \u201cIt\u2019s been almost a year since she disappeared and we\u2019re still in the dark about what happened. We want those behind this to be identified and charged.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One day last November, Julia Chu\u00f1il called for her dog, Cholito, and they set off into the woods around her home to search for lost livestock. The animals returned but Chu\u00f1il, who was 72 at the time, and Cholito did not. More than 100 people joined her family in a search lasting weeks in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[267,2430,151,13367,1298,1307,100,364,702,2975],"class_list":{"0":"post-21810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-dark","10":"tag-deadly","11":"tag-defender","12":"tag-indigenous","13":"tag-land","14":"tag-missing","15":"tag-people","16":"tag-rights","17":"tag-toll"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}