Land and environmental rights

Many indigenous and traditional farming (or campesino) communities are struggling to protect the land on which their livelihoods depend. Often living in conditions of extreme poverty, they rely on their land for food, shelter and cultural identity.

In some cases, pollution from mining threatens to seep into the land and water. In others, communities have been forced from their land for development projects or monoculture plantations, condemning them to internal displacement and landlessness. Others campaign for sustainable land use, seeking to halt patterns of destruction for the benefit of future generations.

International declarations and mechanisms on indigenous rights enshrine the right to self-determination for indigenous peoples and recognise the importance of land rights for the original inhabitants of many countries now governed by the descendents of colonisers. These rights are often the focus of conflict as powerful interests wish to exploit the natural resources found within and beneath traditional territories.

Defenders of land rights, culture and natural resources can find themselves facing powerful interests and brutal opposition. Some have approached PBI for protection after they have been attacked or their colleagues assassinated. Many others have been subjected to criminal prosecutions based on spurious charges.

Accompanied defenders working on land rights, culture and natural resources

Honduras

CEHPRODEC

COPINH

Guatemala

Ch’orti Campesino Central “New Day” (CCCND)

The K'iche' Peoples Council (CPK)

The Cunén Communities Council (CCC)

The Ecumenical and Social Coordination for the Defense of Life in Zacapa and Chiquimula in the Macizo del Merendón

​Peaceful Resistance of La Puya

Peaceful Resistance of La Laguna

The Verapaz Union of Campesino Organisations (UVOC)

Mexico

The “Bartolome Carrasco Briseno” Regional Centre for Human Rights (Barca-DH)

Centre for Human Rights and Legal Advice for Indigenous Peoples (Cedhapi)

Organisation of the Indigenous Me’phaa People (OPIM)

Organisation of Women Ecologists of the Sierra de Petatlán (OMESP)

Colombia

Berenice Celeyta, NOMADESC

Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (CIJP), Curbaradó region

The Judicial Liberty Corporation (CJL)

Luis Carlos Pérez Lawyers’ Collective (CCALCP)

The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

The Peasant Farmer Association of the Cimitarra River Valley (ACVC)

Social Corporation for Community Advisory and Training Services (COS-PACC)

 The Honduran Centre for the Protection of Community Development (El Centro Hondureño para la Promoción de Desarrollo Comunitario)

The Honduran Centre for the Protection of Community Development was founded in 1991. Its primary focus is the right to food linked to the defence of economic, social and cultural rights. They provide legal and technical assistance to indigenous and small- scale farmer organisations that are defending their territory against extractive industries and hydroelectric schemes.

The Centre is also providing legal representation to those who have been criminalised in their defence of their land and territory.

Currently the Centre is present in 10 out of 18 departments of Honduras and it coordinates the national coalition of environmental networks (Coalición nacional de Redes Ambientales CONROA).

PBI Honduras has been accompanying the Centre since May 2014.

Founded in 1993, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, COPINH, is a political and social indigenous non-profit organization. It represents the grassroots movement in the department of Intibucá, the struggle in defense of the environment, and the preservation of the Lencan culture. Their goal is to facilitate the recognition of the political, social, cultural, and economic rights of Lencan communities and campesinos in Honduras, thus propelling an improvement in living conditions

While COPINH works directly with communities in the southwest region of Honduras to protect their rights to land, water, and life, their sphere of influence is national. Furthermore, it plays many roles throughout the continent of Central América, for example: Red Latinoamericana Contra Represas (REDLAR), Articulación Continental de los Movimientos Sociales Hacia el ALBA, Grito de los Excluidos/as Continental, and COMPA.

PBI Honduras has accompanied the coordinating team of COPINH since April 2016, after the March 2016 assassination of figurehead Berta Cáceres. The organization works in an atmosphere of sustained violence, and continues to suffer threats, intimidation, assassination attempts, detentions, and defamations because of the work that they do defending human rights.

PBI Honduras accomanies the COPINH and the family of Berta Caceres to the trials for her murder.

The K'iche Peoples Council (CPK) was formed in 2008 and focuses on "the defense of life, Mother Nature, Land and Territory". In this context, it defends and promotes the collective rights of indigenous peoples, the right to life, rights to water, land and, in general, the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights (ESCR).

Analysis, debate, dialogue and consensus are tools used by the CPK for decision-making, prioritizing the opinion of the Quiche community assemblies and recognizing them as the most important elements in the right to self-determination of its members. It promotes activities and proactive information on community consultations in the villages of Quiche.

The organisation conducts popular and good faith consultation processes in the region where hundreds of communities in several municipalities have for many years publicly opposed mega projects (mining, hydroelectric, agribusiness) and electricity network projects. Approximately 80 community mayors and members of Community Development Councils (COCODEs), participate in the CPK, conveying the concerns of the approximately 87 communities and 6 urban zones of Santa Cruz.

CPK members have received threats and attacks, which prompted several requests for international observation and accompaniment by PBI on specific occasions since the beginning of 2013. Following this we have maintained a presence in Santa Cruz del Quiche, and have held meetings with members of the CPK and in particular with its leader in the country and abroad, Lolita Chavez, who has been targeted and therefore receives precautionary measures ordered by the IACHR.

Cunén Community Council (CCC) is a community organization for the defence of the land, natural resources and human rights. CCC was formed in 2009 and consists of 22 members from 8 micro-regions, all from the department of Quiché in Guatemala. 

In 2008 the Cunén community discovered that mining licenses approved by the Guatemalan Government accounted for 80% of the community’s territory divided among 7 different extractive industries.In 2009, communities in Quiché came together to organize community consultations about mining, hydroelectric dams, and the implementation of mega-projects in the region. During this consultation process over 19,000 people from 71 communities voted against large scale investment projects in Quiché. In the area of Cunén and northern Quiché, there are many social conflicts around hydroelectric projects, mining and high-voltage electricity pylons. 

PBI observed part of the preparation process as well as the consultation itself, in which approximately 19,000 people from 71 communities voted against the aforementioned projects. 

PBI began accompanying CCC in 2010 due to the security risks faced by human rights defenders actively promoting the right to land, territory and natural resources in the region.

Since 2010, residents of the communities of San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc have been undertaking actions of peaceful resistance to state their disagreement with the gold extraction project called “El Tambor” Progreso VII Derivada. This extraction project is currently owned by Kappes, Cassiday & Associates, a company from the United States, that acts through the local subsidiaries Exploraciones Mineras de Guatemala S.A. and Servicios Mineros de Centro América. The local residents specifically demand a community consultation before construction of the mine starts. They also urge an independent environmental impact study, due to doubts about the accuracy of the current study which was carried out by the company itself and concerns about the reduction of access to water, its contamination, as well as damage to fauna and to the whole ecosystem once the mine starts functioning.

In November of 2015 PBI Guatemala began accompaniment of the Peaceful Resistance of La Laguna, in the municipality of San Pedro Ayampuc, department of Guatemala. This resistance began with a sit-in in the area on April 4 this 2015. This sit-in initiated to express disagreement with the installation of an electricity distribution and a high voltage station belonging to the Colombian energy company, Transportadora de Centroamérica S.A. (TRECSA), which aims to provide energy to the 20 mining projects that operate around the town. In late 2014, a community consultation was held regarding the project. The majority rejected the proposed works; around 530,000 people voted against the project. In contrast, only 30 people were in favour. The main concerns of the Resistance are potential environmental and health impacts, such as deforestation, decreasing water supplies, and pollution of the environment with harmful chemicals. The Resistance demands that state and municipal authorities cancel the licence awarded to TRECSA, granted in 2011.

The resistance maintains a permanent protest camp in San Pedro Ayampuc.  

The UVOC was founded in the 1980s and includes over 200 campesino communities in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Izabal, and El Quiché in Guatemala. It works principally on access to land for indigneous and campesino communities and to provide support in the process of legalisation of the communities’ land titles. The organisation also offers training to communities affiliated to the UVOC and supports development projects within those communities.

One of the main problems faced by the communities is land evictions, says UVOC's director, Carlos Morales: “In some cases the communities that are evicted have been living on the land for hundreds of years and from one day to the next the police present a notification that gives the community a maximum of one hour to leave the land with all their belongings. If the community does not comply, their houses, schools, churches, and belongings are burnt, their crops destroyed and their animals killed and in many cases members of the community are beaten. Following the eviction the community is forced to live on the streets or in temporary shelters."

One of the most serious cases over the last few years was that of the ‘La Mocca’ estate, where several people received gunshot wounds during the violent eviction of campesino families living on the estate, and one person died in ensuing conflict between the evicted families and alleged supporters of the estate owner. The evicted families had no alternative land and were stuck living on the side of the road leading to La Mocca for the next five years. UVOC provided them with support and legal representation, and the case was included in the Report for Mr. Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, compiled by 10 Guatemalan civil society organisations for the visit of Philip Alston to Guatemala.

Members of the UVOC have experienced surveillance and intimidation as a result of their work.

Carlos Morales said: “I have been threatened and attacked. It’s a constant worry having to hide day and night and not having any freedom to leave. This also affects my family, who can’t even go out in the street. We have had to resort to all possible security strategies."

PBI's accompaniment has enabled UVOC to continue its normal activities and carry on fighting for campesino rights.

The “Bartolome Carrasco Briseño” Regional Centre for Human Rights (Barca-DH) was founded by the local church community to promote and defend human rights in Oaxaca State. Its creation was a response to murders and violent acts that were being inflicted with impunity on the state's largely poor, indigenous and marginalised population.

Through its projects, Barca-DH seeks “to contribute to the validity of human rights in Oaxacan communities, so that they may live with justice and dignity”. Barca advises on community proposals and carries out advocacy work and human rights education, provides legal defence and distributes information on the situation in the state.

It also supports communities resisting large-scale mining and other development projects.

Since Barca-DH was established in 1992, its workers have constantly faced surveillance, threats and smear campaigns as well as violent attacks and judicial proceedings against them for their human rights work.

PBI has accompanied Barca-DH since October 2010. We primarily accompany coordinator Minerva Martinez Lazaro and the priests Martin Octavio Garcia Ortiz and Wilfrido Mayren Pelaez (known as Padre Uvi), who are both board members.

The Centre for Human Rights and Legal Advice for Indigenous Peoples (Cedhapi) is based in the city of Tlaxiaco, in the Mixtec region in the northeast Oaxaca State.

Founded in 2001, Cedhapi's mandate is to protect the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples. It is dedicated to the legal defence and public reporting of cases of grave human rights violations. Among other cases, it represents the relatives of the three people assassinated in Santo Domingo Ixcatlán in April 2008.

Gustavo Castañeda Martínez, Melesio Martínez Robles and Inocencio Medina Bernabé were murdered by a group of armed men with alleged links to the local authorities.

The armed group has continued to harass the inhabitants of Santo Domingo Ixcatlán and for this reason 177 members of the Santo Domingo Ixcatlán community were granted precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in May 2008.

PBI began accompanying Cedhapi's members in 2009, after human rights defenders working with Cedhapi received death threats in connection with their work on the Santo Domingo Ixcatlán case.

For more than twenty years, the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (CIJP) has defended human rights and accompanied victims of human rights violations in Colombia.

CIJP cites international human rights law and the gospel of human dignity as its reasons for existing. It is made up of 50 members with Catholic, Presbyterian and humanist backgrounds, who support communities or organisations nonviolently affirming their rights in areas of armed conflict. CIJP also supports the search for truth, justice and reparation, as well as negotiated political resolutions to the internal armed conflict.

CIJP has frequently spoken out against grave human rights violations implicating high-ranking army officers. Its work supporting displaced communities in their efforts to return to their lands also affects the interests of influential economic sectors, such as the oil palm industry in the Curbaradó River Basin.

“Since 2002 to date, members of our Justice and Peace Commission have been the targets of surveillance, harassment, telephone death threats, kidnapping, attempted forced disappearance, attempted murder, forced displacement, temporary exile, unfounded legal proceedings, and media campaigns to discredit and stigmatise [the Commission].”

PBI has accompanied CIJP since 1994. We principally accompany its operations in Bogotá, the Cacarica, Curbaradó and Jiguamiandó River Basins (Urabá).

The Luis Carlos Perez Lawyer’s Collective (CCALCP) is an organisation of women human rights lawyers based in the Magdalenia Medio and Catatumbo regions in northeastern Colombia. These areas are rich in biodiversity and indigenous cultural heritage, and home to vast untapped reserves of coal and oil. CCALCP supports grassroots organisations, displaced communities and victims of paramilitary violence with legal advice and training, and advocates on a national and international level to raise awareness about the impact of armed violence and large scale extractive projects on indigenous and campesino (small-scale farming) communities. 

Neutrality in the midst of armed conflict

The community’s declaration of neutrality is a way of protecting itself. This idea is based on the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians in international humanitarian law.

Living spaces are clearly marked out as civilian, sending a message similar to that of a red cross on a hospital; members claim their right to non-involvement in the conflict and demand that armed actors do not enter their living areas. This principle of neutrality has enabled them to return to many of their settlements after displacement.

With the conflict present all around them, “staying returned” is a constant challenge for the community’s members. With armed actors continuing to do battle close to their settlements, there is the danger of being caught in crossfire or stepping on a landmine. (The community reports battles that occur very close to living areas; between January and June 2013 it reported at least 21 [1].)