Environmental Human Rights: News & Updates

This spring, Colombia could elect its first progressive president. In primary elections earlier this month—held for left-wing, centrist, and ruling right blocs—former Bogotá mayor and 2018 presidential candidate Gustavo Petro won an astounding nearly 4.5 million votes to emerge as nominee for the left-wing coalition known as the Historic Pact. Petro has pledged to ban new fossil fuel exploration from day one, proposing to "end oil exploration, but not exploitation. The old coffee-growing country has been left behind and sadly we moved into oil and coal. This is unsustainable and will bring about extinction. We need to move away from an extractivist economy and move towards a productive one.” Petro has been involved in politics ever since the M19 pivoted toward the constitutional process, and is no stranger to challenging the right. He called out right-wing government connections to far-right paramilitaries as a lawmaker, consequently receiving death threats, which is no surprise as Colombia is the world’s most dangerous country for human rights defenders and environmentalists.

In the open meeting, Quimistán was declared free of ZEDES and ratified free of mining and hydroelectric power. Amada Lopez, vice coordinator of ASODEBICOQ, was elected member of the Municipal Transparency Commission.

A mass document leak published by 20 international news outlets including El Faro uncovered how the international owners of an open-pit nickel mine paid off Guatemalan security forces, ignored court orders, and consorted with the highest echelons of Guatemalan government to obscure pollution, crush local dissent, and continue operating with the tolerance of three administrations

The refoundation of Honduras took two more important steps this month. After the successful electoral win of the opposition in November, the initially divided opposition in Congress came together this month and the US officially requested the extradition of JOH for his drug trafficking ties which led to his arrest. Of course, this does not mean that the old power structures are gone, they are still in place, especially in the Judiciary. But change seems possible. This also included the announcement to demilitarize the prisons as well as the state security forces in general. There were other things to celebrate in February, especially the liberation of the Guapinol defenders after over 900 days illegally imprisoned. But the way to a Honduras respecting human rights is still long and steep. Three members of the LGBTQ+ community were murdered in the first week of February; the Minosa mining company seems to be free to ignore court rulings and go on with the exhumation of a Maya Chortí cemetery in Azacualpa; and the indigenous Lenca Tierras del Padre community faced eviction threats. Welcome to another month in Honduras.

The Confederation of Federations of the Salvadoran Agrarian Reform (CONFRAS) considers that this year there will be a decrease in the national production of basic grains and vegetables, given the increased cost of inputs for agricultural production and little government support. They say that this, in turn, will generate more unemployment, poverty, hunger and greater emigration of the rural population. “The increase in prices of agricultural inputs and gas is generating a drop in productivity and reduction in cultivated areas. If this problem is not solved, there will be an expanded food crisis. With the increase in the cost of living in the country during 2022, poverty rates, which have been increasing since 2020, will skyrocket even more” said Alejandra Góchez, from the CONFRAS board of directors.