‘Sustainable’ Development and Atmospheres of Violence: Experiences of Environmental Defenders

In 2014 the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights defenders identified environmental defenders as those most at risk of violence and death. Global Witness reported that almost four environmental defenders were killed per week in 2017. This project focuses on defenders working around natural resource extraction and agricultural developments in Africa (DRC, Guinea-Bissau), Asia (Bangladesh, Cambodia) and Latin America (Brazil, Ecuador). It aims to identify the governance structures and socio-economic, political and historical conditions and processes that are at the root of atmospheres of violence around ’sustainable’ development projects. The project responds to an area of urgent policy and humanitarian concern by examining how and why environmental defenders experience violence in relation to sustainable development. By identifying the factors and processes producing violence, the project seeks to enable policymakers to better assess when and how projects designed to promote sustainable development might place environmental defenders at risk of eroded dignity, physical harm and even death.