In late April 2025, after 41-year-old farmer Oussama Farhat was discharged from the hospital, two pieces of shrapnel still lodged in his body, he hurried to check on an injured red fox. In his southern Lebanon village of Meiss el-Jabal, Farhat, a volunteer with the environmental organization Green Southerners, had helped rescue the cub from beneath the rubble of ongoing Israeli air strikes — the…
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Every three days someone is killed for defending nature. In 2025, watchdog group Global Witness documented 124 such deaths worldwide, a toll researchers say is likely only a fraction of the total number because repression and armed conflict make many deaths impossible to verify. The victims included Indigenous people, small-scale farmers and community organizers peacefully protecting…
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Right-wing businessman Abelardo de la Espriella holds a razor-thin lead in Colombia’s preliminary presidential vote count, positioning the Donald Trump ally to clear the way for expanded fossil fuel extraction, including controversial fracking projects. A de la Espriella presidency would mark a sharp reversal for one of the world’s most ambitious experiments in fossil fuel phaseout.
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Environmental and Indigenous rights defenders remained among the world’s most targeted human rights advocates in 2025, despite landmark rulings by international courts affirming governments’ obligations to protect both the environment and those who defend it. At least 358 human rights defenders were killed last year, according to a report released last week by Front Line Defenders…
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