Technical Data

Land of Resistants Database

Environmental leaders have been affected by different types of violence in seven Latin
American countries. (Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and Colombia)
from 2009 to 2018.

1. Objective

To document cases of environmental leaders affected by some form of violence in the

seven countries. Each register details information such as the different forms of violence
suffered by the leaders or communities, the natural resource they defend, the place
where their resistance takes place, the description of the defended activity, the context of
each case or the situation of justice.

2. Period of time

We selected a 10- year period, from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2018.

3. Information gathering

There is no single or common record of violence against environmental leaders in the

seven countries, so media teams collected data depending on the reality and availability
of information in each country.

In general, journalistic teams resorted to social organizations, state agencies, press

archives, and the leaders themselves. Each team then determined whether cases met the
environmental leadership parameters that the project established.

4. Relevant Features of the Database

The complete database allows us to measure the universe of environmental leaders who
are victims of violence in the seven Latin American countries.

Each entry in the database corresponds to an individual or a community. When more than
one act of violence was found against the same individual or community, the variable
"Type of violence" refers to the most serious case and the category "Other Types of
Violence" accounts for the other episodes so that a register can account for more than
one incident of violence.

In addition to the primary source of information, each case recognizes links to other
documentary sources that allowed the teams to enrich the data.

4.1. Location
There are two levels of identification of geographical location: a "State - Department -
Province" and a "Municipality - Canton – Other”. In some cases, the location is further
explained through an additional "Parish - Hamlet - Township - Other".

4.2. The dates (years and months) on which environmental leaders have suffered the most
violent impacts.

4.3. The role of justice concerning the investigation of the episodes of violence.

There is only information about this category in the following cases.

a. When there is a fully established ruling by a judicial authority.

b. When after a judgment or acknowledgment of responsibility a judicial authority
granted pardon for the case.
c. When each journalistic team employing some reliable source could corroborate
that the judicial authorities initiated an investigation of the case, no matter how
advanced or slow the research is.
d. When it was established with certainty that there was no initiation of an
investigation.
e. In a large number of cases, the newspaper teams in each country were unable to
establish the status of the case, which is why "No Information" was registered.

4.4. The gender of environmental leaders.

4.5. What are the main activities that environmental leaders oppose. The most relevant or
visible was selected, although in several cases they oppose more than one.

4.6. What was the main environmental resources defended by environmental leaders. The
most relevant or visible was selected, although in several cases they protect more than
one resource.

4.7. Whether environmental leaders belong to an ethnic community and, if so, to which.

4.8. Date of birth of the leader or organization. In many cases, it was not possible to
establish the date of birth of the defender, in others only the age of the leader at the time
of suffering the violent event. In the latter cases, we register the first month and day of
the year in which each leader was born. For example, when we managed to establish that
a leader died in 2013 at age 62, the exercise was as follows: 2013 - 62 = 1951. Then we
record the leader's date of birth as 01/01/1951.

4.9. The categories "Name of the perpetrator of the violent act" and "Name of the
intellectual author of the violent act" were only registered when there was a judicial
sentence, by the principle of the right of presumption of innocence that every investigated
person has. In some cases, these fields registered when the perpetrator confessed his guilt
in the victimizing events.

4.10. The category "Name of the company or person who denounced the leader" refers to
the company, person or organization that denounced the leader in its environmental
cause. However, this does not imply or indicate any responsibility on the part of those
named concerning the authorship or participation in the victimizing act of each leader.

4.11. The category "Responsibility of State agents?" was only registered when there was a
court decision or recognition of responsibility for State agents.

4.12. The category "Were there complaints/alerts to the State?" records whether any
complaint or risk alert had reported with different national or international institutions
(such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) before the victimizing act.