Environmental human rights defenders

According to the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders and various international NGOs, environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) are a group of growing importance and a group at particular risk. Yet little is understood about them, about the particular challenges they face, or about how the international community might best support them.

This project aims at listening to the EHRDs and understanding their specific situations and challenges. A first phase of this project led to a report outlining the increasingly worrying situation faced by the EHRDs, which includes harassment, violence and death. The policy report aims at contributing to a better understanding of the contemporary situation of the EHRDs around the world and the rationale behind human rights violations against the EHRDs, which are increasing. The report also presents recommendations to the international community on how to better protect and promote the rights of the EHRDs and how to “defend defenders” in a better way, with a biew of enabling them to continue their vital work.

The second phase of this project, to look for some of the findings published in the report produced under the first phase of the project, and to carry out several regional consultations in Latin America, with a view to identifying and implementing effective solutions for Challenges and problems faced by the EHRDs.