Last Year Was The Deadliest Ever For World’s Environmental Activists

"It was a brazen and nasty attack.

Three armed men marched into a village in the Philippines region of Mindanao last September and ordered Dionel Campos and his relative, Bello Sinzo, out of their homes. They were activists fighting a new mining operation who remained there with their families in spite of threats. In front of fellow villagers and students at a local school, the two men were executed. Afterward, the gunmen fired their weapons skyward, causing the villagers to scatter.

When the villagers returned, they found a third victim. Emerito Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, was dead in a chair with his hands bound, a stab wound to his stomach and his throat slit, local newspapers reported. No arrests have been made.

A report released Monday by the nonprofit watchdog group Global Witness claims that 2015 was the deadliest yet for people who sought to protect their land, forests and rivers from mining, logging and dams. The report, 'On Dangerous Ground' called the 185 deaths it uncovered from news reports and public records 'shocking,'a nearly 60 percent increase from the previous year, 'and the highest annual toll on record.'"

Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post June 20, 2016.