Death Stalks Colombian Defenders Of Nature

Torib�o, Colombia, Sept 15 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Sep, 2021 ) :As the sound of gunfire erupts near her office, Celia Umenza takes the briefest of pauses from discussing her battle against farming expansion and mining that threaten indigenous land and water in Colombia.

Death is a constant companion for indigenous defenders of nature in the violence-ridden country, and Umenza has already survived three attempts on her life.

While speaking to AFP, bursts of gunfire and explosions reverberate in the mountains near her office in Toribio, in the rural Cauca department.

She stops speaking for just a moment before resuming the interview, seemingly indifferent to the looming threat that has become a part of life for many in Colombia.

In a report released Sunday, the non-governmental group Global Witness said Colombia was the most dangerous country for land and environment defenders for the second year in a row in 2020, accounting for 65 of the 227 killings reported worldwide.

"We have the threat of government repression, of retaliation by the guerrillas and also by the paramilitaries," said Umenza, 48.

The most recent attack on her life was in 2014.

"A neighbor was driving me in a van... they riddled the van with bullets," she said.

According to Global Witness, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for environmental activists since 2012, when its records begin.

A third of deadly attacks were on indigenous peoples, and many were linked to opposition to logging, mining, agribusiness, hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure threatening natural resources that communities have relied on for generations.

- 'Preserving the water' - Since the 1970s, the indigenous peoples of the Cauca region of southwest Colombia have been fighting an expansion by sugarcane growers they say are driving them from the fertile lowlands they rely on for survival, and destroying the forest.

"We no longer have those forests that used to exist, we no longer have that fauna, that flora. It is really worrying," said Umenza.

The dispute is also about water, she said.

Unlike the native vegetation, she explained, the sugar cane "draws a lot of water and little by little" has been drying up the streams.

In its report, Global Witness said 17 people worldwide were killed in 2020 for their activism against agribusiness, and 20 in disputes over water and dams.

"Companies have been acting irresponsibly for decades, contributing to, and benefiting from, attacks on land and environmental defenders," it noted.