Brief: Women environmental human rights defenders

Women and girls are taking action worldwide to realize human rights, particularly the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, and the rights of nature. They are defending land, water, natural resources, territories, and communities from environmental harms and climate impacts, often at great personal risk, facing criminalization, threats, stigmatization, violence, and even death.

Women environmental human rights defenders (WEHRDs), many of whom are indigenous peoples and people of African descent, face gender-specific challenges and violence. They are targeted not only as defenders of rights, land, and natural resources but also as women defying discriminatory societal gender norms. These threats include gender-based violence, assault, threats to their families, defamation campaigns, and other forms of gender-based intimidation, offline and online, to silence their voices and undermine their work.

As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+30), which emphasized the importance of women’s participation in environmental decision-making and action, this brief outlines key actions for defending the women who defend our planet. It underscores the importance for Member States to reaffirm their commitments and responsibilities, and to respect, protect, and fulfil their human rights obligations to WEHRDs, including the right of indigenous peoples to free, prior, and informed consent, and ensure WEHRDs’ full, meaningful, and equal participation in decision-making processes and environmental and climate action.