Tag: #DefendEnviDefender

As we conclude the third quarter of 2026, the ongoing fight to safeguard our environment and protect those who defend it remains as urgent as ever. Across Asia and the Pacific, environmental defenders continue to face severe risks—from arbitrary detentions and judicial harassment to systemic violence and state-sponsored repression—while standing on the front lines of escalating climate disasters, including devastating flash floods in Nepal, widespread flooding across the Philippines and Thailand, and the looming threat of a Super El Niño alongside destructive mining, deforestation, and climate inaction. 

For many of the world’s Indigenous Peoples, defending the environment is inseparable from defending their collective rights, identities, cultures, livelihoods, and ways of life. Their spiritual and material relationships with their lands, territories, waters, and resources sustain their communities and carry responsibilities to future generations. These relationships are protected under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the rights to maintain their institutions and cultures, determine their own development priorities, and conserve and protect their environment.

The Asia Pacific Network of Environmental Defenders (APNED) joins Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, environmental defenders, human rights groups, and civil society in calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Pranab Doley, an Indigenous land and environmental rights defender arrested by Assam Police in Guwahati, India, on 12 July 2026.