Colombia, Brazil face violence crisis for environmental defe

Colombia and Brazil together accounted for 52% of environmental activist killings in 2025, according to Global Witness. This concentration of violence signals a governance failure with direct implications for supply chain due diligence and ESG risk assessment.

Multinational organisations operating in or sourcing from these countries face a material question: how do they map stakeholder safety into their materiality analyses and procurement protocols? The data suggests that environmental activism – often the only real check on extractive industries and land-use violations – is under systematic threat in regions where commodity production and biodiversity loss are most intense.

For ESG teams, this isn't peripheral. It's a red flag about weak institutional controls, inadequate rule of law, and the absence of meaningful stakeholder consultation in sectors (agriculture, mining, timber) where most large-cap supply chains intersect. Global Witness has documented this pattern for years; the concentration in two countries isn't random.

Organisations that treat this as a reputational risk only – rather than as evidence of broken governance structures in their supply base – are underestimating the exposure. If environmental defenders are being killed with impunity, other types of stakeholder protection (labour rights, indigenous land rights, community consultation) are likely compromised too.

The question isn't whether to divest or withdraw. It's whether your due diligence process has the granularity to distinguish between companies that are genuinely building institutional safeguards and those that are simply managing around the problem.

Colombia and Brazil deadliest countries for environmental activists, report says

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