An Introduction to Both ENDS' System of Care
Silencing the Voices of Environmental Defenders
Together with environmental justice groups from the Global South, Both ENDS works towards a sustainable, fair and inclusive world. In recent years, our partners have become increasingly threatened, intimidated, violated, imprisoned, and even murdered as a result of their environmental and human rights activities. Our advocacy partners face repressive reprisals for speaking out against environmentally destructive initiatives and denouncing human rights abuses of companies and governments, whilst the communities they support are subjected to violence for simply acting out of necessity to protect their lives, land, territories, and communities from harm.
Their experiences are part of a broader crackdown on environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) across the globe, making it harder and more dangerous for them to defend basic rights and amplify their voices. The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre tracked over 3,500 attacks on environmental defenders between 2015 and 2023, while a recent report by Global Witness documented at least 1,910 environmental defenders losing their lives between 2012 and 2022. The most dangerous sectors for environmental defenders according to the first report are mining, oil, gas and coal, and agribusiness – sectors where Both ENDS partners are very active. Additionally, protective social and environmental legislation is eroding, leaving communities and human rights defenders, often women, more vulnerable.
Our partners work on various issues, from challenging trade and investment rules to promoting sustainable land, forest, and water use and advocating for a just energy transition. However, they face increasing violence and opposition from vested interests, especially in lucrative development industries like fossil fuels, extractives, commercial plantation agriculture, forest industries, bio-fuels, and large-scale infrastructure. These industries, often in collaboration with government agencies or other enablers such as police, military, and private security actors, use intimidation tactics to silence EHRDs opposing land acquisition for commercial and state-led ventures.
Repressive Tactics and the Human Costs
These repressive methods include the implementation of new laws and regulations (and their selective enforcement) that limit the work and activities of civil society organisations in many countries (e.g. fiscal-administrative sanctions, permits being revoked, freezing bank accounts, restrictions on rights to freedom and public assembly). EHRDs suffer physical attacks including gender-based violence, harassment, disappearances, arrests, online censorship and digital threats, surveillance, office-raids, SLAPP suits, smear-campaigns, the deliberate undermining of community processes, and killings.
The demands of sustaining operations or simply making one’s way and coping in such hostile conditions places our partners and their local constituencies under unimaginable pressures and strain. The emotional, physical, and psychological toll of continuous exposure to threats and repressive actions is becoming manifest in exhaustion, sickness, and trauma. For women and girls, this is compounded by sexual violence and gendered exclusion from access to basic welfare. The need to implement security management protocols around daily activities in order to stay safe and keep supporting communities has increased the basic operational costs of CSOs enormously.
Our Duty to Care for Defenders for Environmental and Climate Action
We recognise the urgent need to support our advocacy partners and their communities in addressing risks and ensuring their well-being. Both ENDS sees this as not only a humanitarian necessity but also as an indispensable environmental-climatestrategy. Supporting partners in dealing with risks in what is often high-risk lobbying and advocacy is also a vital pre-condition to enable them to continue their work and protect the world’s ecosystems, promote sustainable alternatives to harmful development, and defend ancestral ways of relating to the earth that safeguard our collective future.
We also see that support for Environmental Human Rights Defenders (EHRDs) tends to be ad-hoc and focused on the security of individual defenders rather than the collective, holistic protection and well-being that EHRDs identify as crucial for remaining active and effective in local movements. Funding mechanisms often lack flexibility to address ongoing risks or unforeseen emergencies. Moreover, funding typically prioritises well-known EHRDs, overlooking the broader community of defenders and their interconnected support networks.
To address these challenges, Both ENDS, in collaboration with allies, has been working on developing a comprehensive System of Care, exploring and piloting the ways in which our partners facing threats as a result of their environmental and human rights work can be supported in their efforts to build protection, strengthen practices of care, and sustain their work and guarantee our collective future.
For more information
Read more about this subject
-
Publication / 15 February 2022
-
Publication / 30 October 2023
-
Event / 21 February 2022, 16:00 - 17:30
Webinar and launch of new publication about EU-Mercosur
What is the EU-Mercosur association treaty and why is it controversial? What could be the implications of the treaty for people and their livelihoods both in EU and Mercosur countries? For more information about these and other issues, see our new publication and join our interactive webinar next week!
Register here
-
News / 8 March 2020
Pursuing the right to livelihood and dignity for women workers in the Ugandan palm oil sector
SEATINI Uganda is engaging women working in the palm oil sector in a campaign to improve their work situation. Around International Women's Day, March 8, they are organizing various actions to gain awareness for the situation and the rights of these women workers.
-
News / 11 October 2019
Rights for people, rules for corporations: the case of Paraguay
Indigenous communities in Paraguay saw their attempts to regain their ancestral lands thwarted by German investors. This is the level of impact that investment treaties can have on social, environmental and economic development and rights. Why? Because of the ‘Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS) clauses that are included in many such treaties.
-
Blog / 10 December 2021
Vaccine apartheid is a violation of human rights
Pharmaceuticals hold on to their patents and (our) governments do not remove the barriers to free production that were raised under international trade agreements years ago.
-
Dossier /
Rights for People, Rules for Corporations – Stop ISDS!
Indigenous communities in Paraguay saw their attempts to regain their ancestral lands thwarted by German investors. In Indonesia, US-based mining companies succeeded to roll back new laws that were meant to boost the country’s economic development and protect its forests. This is the level of impact that investment treaties can have on social, environmental and economic development and rights. Why? Because of the ‘Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement’ clauses that are included in many such treaties.
-
News / 21 September 2023
Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action supports the African People’s Counter COP
Six out of nine planetary boundaries have been crossed (Stockholm Resilience Centre) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world is likely to breach global temperature of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels between now and 2027. COP28 is the moment of the first Global Stocktake, which means the assessment of where we are at in reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement.
-
Dossier /
Uganda’s Energy Future
Despite the existence of many hydropower dams, foreign investments and large government spending on energy, and new plans for hydropower, oil and gas projects, the vast majority of rural Uganda still remains without electricity. Together with our local partners we are striving towards a sustainable energy strategy for Uganda that starts from the needs and wishes of local communities.
-
News / 23 November 2018
RSPO takes further steps towards a less harmful palm oil sector
The production of palm oil is often accompanied by deforestation, environmental destruction and land grabbing. Local communities and activists who stand up against these problems are often threatened. Now the RSPO has taken significant steps in recent months to tackle these issues.
-
Publication / 27 June 2018
-
News / 28 February 2018
Human Rights defenders from all over the world visit EU to call for strong measures against deforestation
This week, from 12 until 16 February, fourteen indigenous leaders and human rights defenders from forest countries came to the Netherlands to call upon Dutch policy makers to take serious action against human rights abuses, land grabbing and further deforestation in relation to large scale agriculture, timber logging and mining. The Dutch harbours of Rotterdam and Amsterdam receive enormeous amounts of soy and palm oil, both for the Dutch market and for further transport into Europe and elswhere.
-
Transformative Practice /
Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs)
About one in every six people, particularly women, directly rely on forests for their lives and livelihoods, especially for food. This shows how important non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and forests are to ensure community resilience. Not only as a source of food, water and income, but also because of their cultural and spiritual meaning.
-
News / 14 June 2019
Both ENDS partner TUK presents symbolic tree to Dutch minister Schouten
Last Thursday June 13, Rahmawati Retno Winarni of TUK, an Indonesian partner organisation of Both ENDS, presented a symbolic tree and an appeal to the Dutch Minister of Agriculture Carola Schouten, also on behalf of 10 NGOs. The joint NGOs are pushing the EU, including the Dutch government, for strict EU legislation to prevent the destruction of forests and ecosystems and to protect human rights.
-
News / 28 June 2018
Indigenous leaders present 'Supply Chain Solutions' and petition in Paris and Brussels
Last week, indigenous leaders from various countries were in Paris to urge action on deforestation and human rights abuses at the multi-stakeholder meeting of the Amsterdam Declarations Partnership. The group, invited by Forests Peoples Programme and Both ENDS, presented a publication 'Supply chain solutions for people and forests' containing a set of practical recommendations from local communities on how to make supply chains more sustainable and fair.
-
Dossier /
Fighting for improvements in the production of palm oil
The production of palm oil is causing social and environmental problems worldwide. Both ENDS is working to make the sector fairer and more sustainable and is promoting alternatives for palm oil.
-
News / 11 November 2024
Kenya Terminates Bilateral Investment Treaty with the Netherlands
The government of Kenya has officially terminated its bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with the Netherlands, marking a significant win for economic justice and environmental protection. Kenya’s decision reflects a growing global trend of rethinking outdated treaties that often prioritize corporate interests over public welfare. The Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development recently confirmed that Kenya unilaterally ended the treaty in December 2023, rendering it inoperative from 11 June 2024. Kenya now joins South Africa, Tanzania, and Burkina Faso as the fourth African country to terminate its BIT with the Netherlands.
-
News / 17 July 2024
EU Exits Energy Charter Treaty (ECT): A Milestone for Climate Action
The European Union's decision to exit the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is a landmark victory for climate action. For years, the ECT's Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism has enabled fossil fuel companies to challenge climate policies, hindering progress towards sustainability.
-
Press release / 4 March 2024
Dutch government calls for investigation into Malaysian timber certification
The Dutch government expects PEFC International to undertake an investigation into its own role as a forest certification system, using the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS). "It is about time the Dutch government takes a leading role in ensuring Malaysian timber entering The Netherlands is not associated with deforestation and human rights abuses," states Paul Wolvekamp of Both ENDS. "Considering that the Dutch government has the ambition to build 900.000 houses in the immediate future, involving massive volumes of timber, such as timber from Malaysia for window frames, builders, contractors, timber merchants and local governments rely on the Dutch government to have its, mandatory, timber procurement better organised, i.e. from reliable, accountable sources'.
-
News / 24 August 2023
Recognition of the transformative work of the ILED Network by GEF
A wave of international recognition is shedding light on the valuable role that indigenous communities play in looking after our planet's most vital ecosystems. Last night in Vancouver, two of our partners won a grant in the Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Program: the ILED Network and AIDER (Peru). Our colleague Eva Schmitz was present to receive the prize on behalf of the ILED Network.