Environmental Human Rights Defenders are those who fight for human rights related to a good and healthy environment. In international terms, these people are called EHRD (Environmental Human Rights Defenders). Environmental Human Rights Defenders do not have to be activists, environmental campaigners, or employees of environmental civil society organizations. Environmental Human Rights Defenders can be anyone, whether individuals or groups, in their personal or professional capacity and in a peaceful manner, seeking to protect and promote human rights relating to the environment, including water, air, land, flora and fauna1United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) (2023). Who are environmental defenders? https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/environmental-rights-and-governance/what-we-do/advancing- environmental-rights/who.
Attacks on environmental human rights defenders are a problem that occurs not only in Indonesia, but in various parts of the world. Annual forums are also regularly held by UN agencies such as OHCHR and UNEP. This is because Environmental Human Rights Defenders are at the forefront of the triple planetary crisis (pollution, loss of biodiversity and climate change). Satya Bumi together with Protection International jointly monitored cases of attacks and threats experienced by Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Indonesia throughout 2023 as a database for the public to participate in monitoring and learning about efforts to protect Environmental Human Rights Defenders. We summarize the results of this monitoring and analysis in a report entitled “Trends in Article Diversification and the Widening Spectrum of Human Rights Violations against Indonesian Environmental Activists 2023”. We found a total of 39 cases with a total of 57 attacks & threats, as well as more than 1500 individual victims and 22 group victims. The threats/attacks they experience are quite varied, ranging from physical attacks, hacking, sexual harassment, criminalization, to murder.
