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Latin America has reinforced its grim reputation as the most hazardous corner of the world for environmental activism, with Colombia and Brazil recording the highest casualty rates on the planet, according to the latest findings published by the international watchdog organisation Global Witness. The newly released annual report underscores the perilous conditions faced by grassroots campaigners, smallholders, and community organizers who find themselves on the frontlines of violent land disputes.
Across the globe, the advocacy group documented at least 124 fatal attacks targeting land and environmental defenders in 2025. Colombia ranked as the most dangerous individual country worldwide, tallying 39 documented murders. Neighboring Brazil recorded the second-highest toll, with 26 environmental protectors killed within its borders over the course of the same year.
The regional concentration of this violence remains overwhelming, with Latin America accounting for 85 percent of all documented activist killings globally. This disturbing figure extends an unbroken historical trend, as the territory has consistently registered as the deadliest region in the world every single year since Global Witness initiated its annual documentation and publication efforts in 2012.
For Colombia, the latest figures mark the fourth consecutive year that the South American nation has held the undesirable position at the very top of the global death toll. Despite recurring international appeals and domestic scrutiny, individuals who mobilize to preserve fragile ecosystems, defend natural habitats, and assert territorial rights continue to be eliminated at an alarming rate.
The human toll in Colombia is disproportionately concentrated among vulnerable local populations. Nearly half of the environmental defenders killed across the country in 2025 belonged to indigenous communities. The remainder of the victims were largely small-scale agrarian farmers who came into direct conflict with powerful economic interests and criminal enterprises over the ownership and use of rural territory.
To safeguard their heritage and communal boundaries from external encroachment, many Colombian indigenous groups have established self-protection networks known as indigenous guards. These specialized community units patrol their ancestral lands without firearms, relying strictly on traditional authority, communal solidarity, and peaceful collective resistance to deter intruders.
However, these unarmed guardians frequently become prime targets for illegal armed organizations operating across rural frontiers. Criminal syndicates and armed factions routinely attempt to expand their territorial dominion into indigenous territories to carve out illicit coca plantations—the primary crop used for cocaine production—or to clear land for unauthorized gold and mineral mining operations.
The lethal reality confronting these community protectors was illustrated last week by the death of Jacob Guachetá Zambrano, an active member of an indigenous guard in Colombia's Cauca region. Guachetá Zambrano was abducted, tortured, and murdered, sparking outrage and grief among local community members and human rights monitors.
Although state investigators continue to search for the perpetrators and ascertain the precise motives behind his assassination, indigenous leaders in Cauca emphasized that his death is part of a broader pattern of terror. Communities throughout the region face routine death threats, forced disappearances, and targeted assassinations as rival illegal armed factions wage brutal territorial battles for control of lucrative contraband corridors.
In Brazil, the research team at Global Witness identified a sharp and worrying surge in fatal violence against environmental advocates. The country experienced a doubling of defender killings in 2025 relative to the previous year's figures, cementing its position as the second most dangerous nation on earth for ecological activism.
Much like the dynamic observed in Colombia, the vast majority of deadly confrontations in Brazil were fueled by deeply entrenched disputes over land tenure and resource extraction. Rural organizers and forest defenders frequently find themselves caught in direct conflict with predatory enterprises and armed groups attempting to seize territory for commercial exploitation.
Outside Latin America, Asia emerged as the second-most impacted continent, representing approximately 12 percent of all documented fatalities in 2025. Within that region, the Philippines recorded the most severe casualty count, with researchers identifying 12 documented murders of ecological and land defenders.
The report details the systemic methods utilized to silence environmental advocates, pointing out that killings are overwhelmingly executed by professional hitmen or members belonging to sophisticated organized crime syndicates. These contract killers operate with significant impunity in remote, lawless sectors where government oversight and law enforcement presence remain extremely weak.
The dangers confronting activists across Latin America were further underscored by high-profile killings in surrounding nations, such as the fatal shooting of prominent anti-mining campaigner Juan López in Honduras in 2024. Such incidents highlight the pervasive regional dangers confronting those who speak out against industrial and extractive projects that threaten local ecosystems.
While the worldwide total of documented murders declined slightly from 146 recorded deaths in 2024 to 128 in 2025, Global Witness cautioned against interpreting this numerical decrease as a genuine improvement in safety. The watchdog emphasized that its published figures almost certainly represent a substantial underestimate of the true global toll, as pervasive fear of retaliation and limited monitoring access in isolated frontier zones leave numerous killings entirely unreported.
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