Environmental Human Rights Defenders. A global crisis

2017John H. Knox

Environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) are individuals and groups who ‘strive to protect and promote human rights relating to the environment.’  They come from many different backgrounds and work in different ways. Some are lawyers or journalists, but many are ‘ordinary people living in remote villages, forests or mountains, who may not even be aware that they are acting as environmental human rights defenders.’ In many cases, they are representatives of indigenous peoples and traditional communities whose lands and ways of life are threatened by large projects such as dams, logging, mining or oil extraction.

Key wordsHuman rights defenders

CountriesGlobal