A land defender, land protector, or environmental defender is an activist who works to protect ecosystems and the human right to a safe, healthy environment. Often, defenders are members of Indigenous communities who are protecting property rights of ancestral lands in the face of expropriation, pollution, depletion, or destruction.
Land and its resources may be considered sacred by Indigenous peoples, and caring for land is considered a duty that honors ancestors, current peoples, and future generations.
Land defenders face severe persecution from powerful political and corporate alliances that profit from resource extraction. which in turn may cause pollution. The United Nations Human Rights Council determined that land defenders are "among the human rights defenders who are most exposed and at risk."
Etymology
During the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests, members of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation blocked the construction of the pipeline to protect the tribe's land and water supply. This grassroots effort led to hundreds of arrests and clashes with the police and National Guard soldiers. Negative articles described the Indigenous land defenders as "protestors," a term denounced by many environmental activists.
Environmental activist and actor Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network has criticized the term "protestor," stating the word "protester" is negative and implies that Native people are angry, violent, or overprotective of resources.
Instead, members of the movement refer to themselves as "land defenders," a term that emphasizes pacifism and responsibility to care for ancestral lands which may be part of the defender's heritage.
Inuit Labrador land protector Denise Cole has stated, "I am very much a believer when I take my medicines, when I take my drum, what colonial law would call protesting is very much what I consider is ceremony."
History
Deadly land conflicts in Honduras date back to the early 1990s.
The Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016.
The occupation of the Atlanta Forest by self-described forest defenders such as Tortuguita, & the broader 'Defend Atlanta Forest' movement to prevent the building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center within it. (2022–present)
Role and activism
Land defenders play an active and increasingly visible role in actions intended to protect, honour, and make visible the importance of land. There are strong connections between the water protector movement, land defender movement, and Indigenous environmental activism. Land defenders resist the installation of pipelines, fossil fuel industries, destruction of territory for development such as agriculture or housing, and resource extraction activities such as fracking because these actions can lead to the degradation of land, destruction of forest, and disruption of habitat. Land defenders resist activities that harm land, especially across Indigenous territories and their work is tied to human rights. Yazzie points to the resistance tactics of Diné land defenders and their anti-capitalist and anti-development stance on resource extraction as being highly connected to the longstanding traditions of Diné resistance.
Activism can come in the form of the erection of blockades on reserve lands or traditional territories to block corporations from resource extraction activities. Water and land protectors also erect camps as a way to occupy traditional territories and strengthen cultural ties. Land defenders also work through legal frameworks such as government court systems in effort to keep control of traditional territories. Civil disobedience actions taken by land defenders, are frequently criminalized and some have argued subject to heavier policing and violence.
Women are integral to the success of the movement, as they are often land defenders visible at the front of blockades and in resistance protests.
Dangers facing land defenders
Global Witness reported 1,922 murders of land defenders in 57 countries between 2002 and 2019. 40% of the victims were Indigenous, despite making up 6% of the global population. Documentation of this violence is also incomplete.
In 2020, murders of land defenders hit a record high of 227.
U.N. Special Rapporteur David R. Boyd has asked, "How can we protect the extraordinary diversity of life on Earth if we cannot protect environmental defenders?" He has further stated that as many as one hundred land defenders are intimidated, arrested or otherwise harassed for every one that is killed.