At least 124 people defending land and the natural environment were killed in 2025 — roughly one every three days — according to the annual report published by Global Witness, the British independent watchdog. The figures bring the total number of documented killings and disappearances since the organisation began compiling statistics in 2012 to 2,375, a toll the report describes as comparable to a small-scale war. While the headline number is the lowest recorded since 2014, researchers caution that it almost certainly understates reality, as data collection remains extremely difficult in conflict zones and under authoritarian governments where civil society faces reprisals for reporting abuses.

Latin America remained by far the most dangerous region, accounting for 85% of all killings documented in 2025 — a pattern that has held every year since Global Witness began publishing its annual report. Colombia was the deadliest country for the fourth consecutive year, with 39 killings, followed by Brazil with 26 — more than double the previous year's figure, with most deaths concentrated in the Amazonian states of Rondônia and Pará. Honduras and the Philippines each recorded 12 killings, followed by Mexico with 10 and Guatemala with eight. In Africa, three defenders were killed — one in the Democratic Republic of Congo and two in Tanzania — while in Europe, Corsican farmer and trade unionist Pierre Alessandri was murdered in March 2025. Globally, more than three-quarters of those killed were small-scale farmers, Indigenous peoples, or Afro-descendant peoples, and land disputes were associated with more than half of all deaths.

Organised crime and professional hitmen were implicated in more than a third of killings. Narco-trafficking networks are increasingly overlapping with intrusions into Indigenous territories, as coca production and smuggling routes expand deeper into remote forest regions. In the Ucayali basin of Peru, for example, coca production rose by 600% between 2019 and 2023, pushing criminal gangs to open illegal roads and trails through the Amazon. Corruption compounds the danger: local police and politicians in many affected areas are on the payrolls of trafficking organisations. Mining and extractive industries were linked to 11 killings, logging interests to eight, and agribusiness to six. In Honduras's Bajo Aguán valley — a fertile agricultural region in the country's north — a violent territorial conflict pitting small farmers against palm oil producers has claimed scores of lives over the years, with drug traffickers reportedly allied to agribusiness interests.

Facing growing threats and shrinking outside support, many communities are organising their own defences. Peru's Kakataibo Indigenous Guard, established in 2022 in the Amazon after a string of murders of community leaders, now has more than 150 volunteers across ten bases.