A new reports finds the killings of environmental and land rights activists worldwide has tripled over the past decade. The group Global Witness documented 147 activists who were killed in 2012, compared to 51 in 2002. The death rate is now an average of two per week. Almost none of the killers have faced charges. We air interviews with some of the late activists featured in the report, including José da Silva, a Brazilian conservationist and environmentalist who campaigned against logging and clearcutting of trees in the Amazon rainforest. In 2011, José and his wife, Maria, were murdered by masked gunmen. This could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the scale of the real problem, says Global Witness campaigner Oliver Courtney, who says details about the murders were nearly impossible to locate.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 00:01:38 +0000
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