A Crucial Gap 

While uniting civil society data efforts is important, the Data Working Group is concerned by the lack of government efforts to document attacks on land and environmental defenders. Of the 162 countries that have submitted Voluntary National Reviews of the Sustainable Development Goals since 2015, only 3 – fewer than 2% – indicated that at least one HRD had been killed or attacked. 7 countries reported zero cases and 94% of countries did not report at all. Given this gap, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights primarily relies on civil society data for SDG 16.10. reporting.

Download our report here and see report launch below.

We define land and environmental defenders as individuals, organizations or communities who, in their personal or professional capacity, promote and defend human rights in  connection with the land, environment, territories, natural resources, livelihoods and climate through non-violent means.

The  consolidated global database, hosted on LANDEex, prioritizes the following types of attack against LED: arbitrary detention, beatings or physical injury, death penalty, defamation and smear campaigns, displacement, eviction, forced/enforced disappearance, imprisonment, judicial harassment, kidnapping, killing, sexual violence, and torture. The pilot project covers data for attacks that occurred during the year 2020 in Colombia, Mexico, Kenya and Guatemala and the Philippines. We focus on attacks that permit us to have a reliable and representative data set: attacks that are more easily verifiable and have a higher rate of reporting. In addition, while certain types of attacks do not fulfill the criteria of being widely reported or easily verifiable, we’ve included them to encourage improved efforts at documentation, as well as in the interest of political advocacy targets, such as with SDG 10.6.1. 

The consolidated global dataset will eventually be available on LANDex.