International Day of Forests: a day to honor and support land defenders

By Jeff Conant, senior international forest campaigner

After the first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere follows the United Nations International Day of Forests — a day to reflect upon the value of forests in our lives and ecosystems, and to recommit ourselves to their preservation. Forests are not merely the ‘lungs of the earth,’ absorbing carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen to make all life possible — they are also home to the greatest biodiversity and cultural diversity on the planet. In the words of the Ecuadorian Kichwa community of Sarayaku, “The forest is neither simply a landscape for aesthetic appreciation nor a resource for exploitation. It is, rather, the most exalted expression of life itself.”

As we remember our forests as exalted expressions of life, we need to remember the people who live in and defend them, and in some cases, give their own lives to do so.

Since the March 3 assassination of Berta Cáceres and the ongoing detention of Friends of the Earth’s Gustavo Castro in Honduras, the increasing attacks on environmental defenders have gained a measure of attention; but the attacks continue. In neighboring Guatemala on March 16, a community forester named Walter Manfredo Méndez Barrios was shot and killed while on his way to his plot of land in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala’s Peten region. Last September, also in Guatemala’s Peten region, Q’eq’chi Mayan forest and land defender Rigoberto Lima Choc was killed after successfully denouncing an ‘ecocide’ associated with palm oil development there.

Like Berta and Nelson Garcia, both members of the Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras, Walter Mendez Barrios and Rigoberto Lima Choc were killed for defending the forest, not just because the forest is part of nature’s patrimony, but because of their profound cultural relationship with, and responsibility to, Mother Earth.

All of these recent killings of forest and land defenders fit a clear pattern: the infrastructure projects behind environmental destruction, whether hydroelectric dams or the expansion of agribusiness, are driving factors in their deaths, and the state bears clear responsibility. The landmark human rights case Kawas v. Honduras — based on the killing of another Honduran land defender — set international legal precedent for the requirement that States protect at-risk environmental human rights defenders — meaning that the Guatemalan and Honduran governments are bound under international law to provide restitution, and to stop obstructing justice.

Of course, culpability for these killings and the environmental plunder that brought them about goes beyond governments. As the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, wrote in the Guardian yesterday,

The government must do all it can to break the vicious cycle of violence and impunity. But international financiers of development projects have human rights duties too.

In the case of the killings in Honduras, these financiers include the Dutch development bank FMO, the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation (Finnfund)– both of whom, after years of denial, have temporarily suspended their funding of the Agua Zarca dam — as well as the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei) which has not.

In the case of Rigoberto Lima Choc, killed in the Peten last September in relation to a palm oil company called REPSA, one has to follow the follow the responsibility all the way from REPSA through its supply chain (which may include multinational palm oil traders like Cargill, Wilmar and PepsiCo) to the banks, asset managers and pension funds that finance the industry.

Friends of the Earth is increasingly supporting community forestry as the way forward to protect the world’s last forests. But in order to end the exploitation of forests and support groups like COPINH and La Lucha Cooperative to do community forestry, these groups need rights to their land. And in order to support this effort, we need to get the world’s development banks and private financiers to stop funding projects that erode these rights and that incentivize governments to do the same.

On this International Day of Forests, let’s take a minute to understand the forces that are destroying our forests and our forest defenders — and let’s redouble our efforts to stop them.

Act now: Support justice for Gustavo Castro and COPINH and help stop the construction of the Agua Zarca dam.