LAND, ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

That this House notes that it has been one year since the murder of Goldman Environmental Prize-winner Berta Cáceres; further notes the ongoing persecution and killing of environmental, land and human rights defenders across the world; takes note of the 2016 Global Witness report, On Dangerous Ground, which found that there has been 1,176 documented killings of land and environmental defenders globally since 2002; expresses alarm at the killing of nearly 100 environmental activists in the Philippines since 2010, including Mia Manuelita Cumba Masacariñas-Green on 15 February 2017; further expresses alarm at the killing of over 120 environmental activists in Honduras since 2010, including Berta Cáceres, who had gained international recognition for her decade-long opposition to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on her community's land; calls on the Government to make public statements at the Ministerial and Ambassadorial levels recognising the vital and legitimate role of human rights defenders in states where their work is routinely stigmatised; and further calls on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, through its diplomatic activities, to support the rights of local communities to say no to extractive projects on their land, to provide international recognition and protection to environmental, land and human rights defenders and to work to resolve the underlying causes of violence against such defenders by tackling the corruption and illegalities that blight the natural resource sectors.