Colombian ELDs Data: A Critical Analysis of Global Witness’ Data (2012-2021) on Colombian Land and Environmental Defenders

Amidst global environmental change, environmental and land defenders (ELDs) stand at the forefront of efforts to achieve sustainability targets. These grassroots activists, often from vulnerable communities, employ non-violent strategies in advocating for conservation, social justice, and community protection. Yet, they face mounting risks, especially in resource-abundant countries of the global south, stemming from complex institutional frameworks. Global Witness (GW) publishes the most cited reports and sole database focusing on global ELDs murders. However, GW’s dataset exhibits critical limitations which obscure the true extent of the threats and limit our capacity to develop targeted and efficient solutions. This study complements and analyzes GW's 2012-2021 data on Colombia ELDs and introduces this new dataset (Colombian ELDs Data), combining research and data visualization methodologies to address information gaps, confirm vulnerable groups and industry drivers, identify conflict hotspots, uncover areas of possible under-reporting, and provide local context. Our findings contribute to broader discussions on safeguarding ELDs in resource-abundant contexts, and emphasizing data's pivotal role in shaping human rights, resource extraction, and environmental protection policies. Additionally, it provides tools, methodologies, and alternatives to enhance future research and data on industry drivers, land and resource disputes, evolving violence dynamics, and economic pressures fueling this alarming trend.

This dataset provides the new Colombian ELDs Data, as well as Global Witness's Original Dataset (both global and Amazonia) and a count of the Indigenous victims and the Indigenous communities they were from.

Note 1: as of Feb 2023, the original GW dataset used in this study is no longer publicly available to download on GW’s website. The 2022 ELD GW report does not provides a link to a dataset, therefore making it impossible for this study to include the 60 Colombian victims identified by GW as being killed in 2022.

Note 2: All information compiled into the dataset based on GW's Original Dataset and sources linked. The author is not responsible for any erroneous, false, or manipulated information. Please verify all data before publishing dataset or additional research.