Multiple outlets report that at least 124 land and environmental defenders are killed worldwide in 2025 while protecting forests, rivers, farmland, and Indigenous territories. The figure comes from a new report by Global Witness titled “Collective Power,” which documents deaths of people targeted for their environmental and land-related activism.
The report finds that violence against activists remains widespread, even as the number of recorded killings is described as lower than in previous years. Both sources frame the killings as part of ongoing conflict over access to and control of natural resources, with defenders often positioned at the front lines of disputes involving land, environmental conservation, and Indigenous rights.
While the two articles draw on the same Global Witness findings, they largely emphasize the broader pattern rather than provide detailed case breakdowns or geographic comparisons. One outlet (IPS) explicitly links the killings to a power struggle over global resources, while the other (AllAfrica) repeats the headline framing and highlights the same overall estimate from the report.
