Colombia was the most dangerous country in the world for an environmentalist in 2024, according to a report by the NGO Global Witness. The organization stated that of the nearly 150 environmental activists killed or disappeared worldwide last year, 48 were in Colombia, representing almost one-third of the total victims.
For the third consecutive year, the South American country tops the list of the riskiest nations for social leaders and environmental defenders. The violence is linked to the control of different armed groups over illegal economies, especially mining.
Although homicides decreased compared to the 79 reported in 2023, the international organization warns that the threat persists and that state protection remains insufficient. This comes as the United States formally revoked Colombia’s Drug Certification, in a gesture more political than real, which implies disapproval of the Colombian government’s methods of fighting drug trafficking in the country, which accounts for 67% of the world’s cocaine exports.
Colombia, the most dangerous country for environmentalists in 2024
In 2024, Colombia was once again the most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders. After three years leading the ranking, the country accounted for almost one-third of the global deaths among environmental leaders worldwide.
“For years I have been threatened, intimidated, and constantly followed,” said peasant leader Jani Silva, from the Amazonian region of Putumayo, in the report. She has lived under security measures for more than a decade. This situation, she said, has limited her activism, but Silva continues to oppose the intrusion of extractive companies and armed groups that dispute Amazonian territories.
The report noted that the weak presence of the state in areas formerly dominated by the now-defunct FARC has been exploited by organized crime to expand illicit economies. It also highlighted that mining and other extractive industries were the deadliest sector, with 29 recorded attacks.
In fact, the report confirms what was already known in Colombia: it was not the state that occupied the territories vacated by FARC in 2016, but rather other armed groups or criminal organizations dedicated to drug trafficking. Indeed, the clashes between these groups have taken the civilians living in those regions hostage to a new wave of violence, and the environment has become a victim of their clandestine activities.
Latin America accounted for 82% of the cases of violence against environmental defenders in 2024. After Colombia, Guatemala reported 20 murders and disappearances, Mexico 19, and Brazil 12. Among the Colombian victims, 20 were farmers and 19 were Indigenous people, in addition to other leaders who faced harassment, legal persecution, and intimidation.
US decertification of Colombia will further complicate the situation
The report comes as the United States decertified Colombia in its fight against drug trafficking. Although in practice it amounts more to a political statement, since it does not impose sanctions, the loss of U.S. support may further weaken the already complex battle the Colombian State is waging against drug trafficking groups within its own territory, the world’s main cocaine producer.
President Donald Trump’s government said last Monday that Colombia “has manifestly failed to meet its obligations on drug control,” citing record figures of coca crops and cocaine production under the government of Gustavo Petro. Although the Colombian president argued that the increase in crops began under the Duque administration, the explicit sanction by the United States punishes the current government, hostile to its interests far beyond drug trafficking.
The truth is that, beyond the alleged failure of President Petro’s Total Peace project, the state’s lack of control over its peripheries — areas that concentrate much of the illegal coca production and subsequent drug trafficking — is a historical reality.
After the demobilization of FARC, an organization that controlled much of those regions, the state not only failed to improve its territorial control but also left those regions in the hands of other illegal groups that are now fighting among themselves to dominate drug trafficking routes.
Beyond the mutual accusations, nine years later Colombia faces the same challenge as always: consolidating the state’s presence throughout its territory and preventing the consolidation of illegal groups that, through violence, replace it in that role of territorial control granted by law.