[STATEMENT] Surface All Desaparecidos! Defend Environmental Defenders!

On this International Day of the Disappeared, we stand in unyielding solidarity with the land and environmental defenders who have been forcibly taken from their families and communities. These courageous individuals put their lives on the line every day to protect the natural ecosystems, ancestral lands, and vital resources that humanity depends on. 

Enforced disappearance remains a brutal tactic weaponized by state forces, military groups, and corporate interests to silence dissent, crush community resistance, and instill fear across frontline territories. The scale of this human rights crisis is staggering. According to Global Witness [1], in 2024 alone, 146 defenders were targeted—an average of nearly three individuals lost every single week. While long-term disappearances persist globally in places like Mexico, Honduras, and Chile, Southeast Asia. Countries, particularly the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, are witnessing an alarming surge in short-term enforced disappearances. Indigenous communities, youth leaders, and rural defenders are often targeted. 

Enforced disappearances inflict harms that paralyze surrounding communities. Beyond the physical and psychological torture experienced by victims, they suffer lasting mental wounds and are left with little to no support or protection from the state and other institutions supposedly protecting them. 

The Asia Pacific Network for Environmental Defenders (APNED) calls on governments and international bodies to establish accessible reporting, protection, and legal accountability mechanisms. Authorities must do their part in investigating these abductions and hold the perpetrators accountable, whether they are state agents or private corporate actors operating in collusion with government forces. 

APNED also demands an end to militarization that drives human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances. Communities not only deserve freedom from land-grabbing and threats of displacement, but also deserve protection from rights violations and attacks. 

We encourage civil society to continue participating in the demand to surface all disappeared EHRDs. Surface all disappeared environmental defenders, end the militarization of frontline communities, and defend those who protect our planet.

Surface all disappeared environmental defenders!

Defend environmental defenders!