Colombia is deadly for environmental defenders

Activists risk lives in protecting forests: 48 were killed in 2024, most of any country.

- BY STEVEN GRATTAN

A GIRL looks out a window at the Amazon Pearl community farming project on the outskirts of Puerto Asis.

(Photographs by IVAN VALENCIA Associated Press)

Jani Silva sits inside the wooden house she built on the banks of Colombia’s Putumayo River — a home she hasn't slept in for more than eight years.

The longtime environmental activist has been threatened for work that includes protecting part of the Amazon from oil and mining exploitation. She describes a tense escape one night through a back window after community members tipped her that armed men were outside.

“Since leaving because of the threats, I’m afraid ... it’s not safe to live here,” she told the Associated Press. She comes now only for brief daytime visits when accompanied by others. “The two times I've tried to come back and stay, I've had to run away.”

Activists like Silva face steep risks in Colombia, the deadliest country in the world for people protecting land and forests. Global Witness, an international watchdog monitoring attacks on activists, recorded 48 killings in Colombia last year, nearly a third of all cases worldwide.

Colombia says it protects activists through its National Protection Unit, which provides bodyguards and other security measures. Officials also point to recent court rulings recognizing the rights of nature and stronger environmental oversight as signs of progress.

Silva, 63, now lives under guard in Puerto Asis, a river town near the Ecuador border. She has had four full-time bodyguards for 12 years provided by the National Protection Unit. Yet the threats have not pushed her from her role at ADISPA, the farming association that manages the Amazon Pearl reserve she previously lived on and has worked to protect.

“I have a calling to serve,” Silva said. “I feel like I am needed. ... There is still so much to do.”