Our friends in Peace Brigades International UK (PBI-UK) have released a short film on their work with Human Rights Defenders, and Environmental Defenders.
Think about what it takes to keep a forest standing. Not the satellite imagery or the international agreements – the actual, daily, human act of standing in front of a bulldozer, filing a legal challenge against a mining company, or organising an Indigenous community to assert its ancestral rights. Environmental defenders do that work: people who put their lives on the line to protect the ecosystems our entire civilisation depends upon. Without them, the climate crisis cannot be solved.
The evidence is unambiguous. Where defenders are protected, ecosystems survive. Where they are silenced, destruction follows.
Peace Brigades International has spent decades demonstrating that it is possible to change that equation – to create enough safety and space for defenders to do their work and, in doing so, to protect the planet we all share.
The relationship between environmental defenders and climate action is not peripheral. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been explicit: the voices and knowledge of Indigenous communities and front-line environmentalists must be central to any serious response to global warming. This was reaffirmed at the recent COP in Brazil. These are the people who understand the land. They know which forests absorb the most carbon, which rivers are being poisoned, which corporate operations are illegal, and which communities are already living with the consequences of a warming world. They are not bystanders. They are the most important climate actors we have.
And yet, they are being silenced – sometimes permanently.
You can read the full piece, here, including links to two short films, No Defenders, No Climate Justice.
You can link to their powerful short film, The Power of Presence, here, The Power of Presence.
You can also read a short document on how PBI protects the people who protect our planet, here, PBI: Protecting the people who protect our planet.
PBI-UK are also strong advocates on bringing in mandatory due diligence for business in the UK.
Human rights and environmental due diligence is a process through which businesses identify, prevent, mitigate, and remedy the negative impacts of their activities or those of their subsidiaries, subcontractors, and suppliers – on human rights and the environment.
You can read their report on this here, The Case for Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence.
If you have any interest in the work of Human Rights Defenders, and Environmental Defenders, then PBI-UK is a very good place to start – PBI-UK.
You can also read a piece on their work from Stephen Cragg KC on Counsel Magazine which is well worth a read, here, Protecting human rights defenders.
Categories: Accompaniment, Environment, Evictions, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Land, Legal, Mining, Report, Resource Extraction, Solidarity in Action, Video, Violence
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