Brazil: Brazil Is the World’s Most Dangerous Country to Be an Environmentalist

Apr 17, 2014 | Christina Larson, Bloomberg Businessweek
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Taking a stand to protect the environment in a developing country can be a matter of life and death. According to a new report by Global Witness, a London-based watchdog organization, at least 908 environmentalists were killed in action from 2002 to 2013.

The risks seem to be increasing. “Three times as many people were killed in 2012 than 10 years before,” the report notes. Those 147 deaths in 2012—the deadliest year for environmental activists to date—were “mostly assassinations of specific individuals or extrajudicial killings in the context of demonstration and protest actions.” The most significant sources of conflict were “opposition to land-grabbing and unfair land ownership, large-scale mining operations, deforestation, illegal logging, and hydroelectric projects.” Violence also arose during protests over water pollution, toxic waste disposal, and drainage of wetlands.