Land defender

[1][2][3] Often, defenders are members of Indigenous communities who are protecting property rights of ancestral lands in the face of expropriation, pollution, depletion, or destruction.

[5] Land defenders face severe persecution from powerful political and corporate alliances that profit from resource extraction.

[7] 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.

[19][20][21] 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.

[5][17] Civil disobedience actions taken by land defenders, are frequently criminalized and some have argued subject to heavier policing and violence.

[22][23] 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.

[29] There, paramilitaries in the Aguán valley were sent to infiltrate and murder key lands rights activists to undermine group efforts.

[33] Dunlop connects acts of violence against land defenders in countries such as Mexico as retaliation for resistance to economic development and resource extraction.

[34] The human rights organization Global Witness reported that 164 land defenders were killed in 2018 in countries such as the Philippines, Brazil, India, and Guatemala.