🔗 Share this article

One day last November, Julia Chuñil summoned her dog, Cholito, and ventured into the forest near her home to look for missing livestock. The animals came back but Julia, then aged 72, and Cholito never reappeared.

Over a hundred individuals joined her relatives in a hunt that continued for weeks in the steep, rain-soaked and thickly vegetated landscape of Chile’s ancient Valdivian forest. A month later, they monitored vultures for any grim signs. But they discovered no evidence of Chuñil.

Julia Chuñil is among 146 territorial and ecological activists who were murdered or disappeared globally last year, as reported by a report by the advocacy organization Global Witness. About a third of those, like her, were from native groups – a heavy burden for peoples who together make up only six percent of the global inhabitants.

Chuñil, a prominent figure of Chile’s indigenous Mapuche, was residing in disputed land. Ten years ago she had moved on to a protected forest area, a 2,200-acre section of the age-old Valdivian forest 500 miles below Santiago, which her people claimed as an historical territory.

For many years she campaigning to secure land rights for the location for her tribe. However, the site’s nominal owner, the heir of settlers, declined to relinquish control. His intention was the area for timber extraction – Chile is a major supplier of wood to the US – and he sought to remove Chuñil. Before she vanished, Julia informed allies: “If anything happens to me, you already know who is responsible.”

International Documentation on Attacks Against Activists

The organization started documenting cases of killings and disappearances of land and environmental protectors in 2012. From that point, it has collated a total of two thousand two hundred fifty-three cases. Over the last ten years, the riskiest region has been Central and South America. In 2024 it represented eighty-two percent of cases, including forty-five Indigenous people.

“Territorial disputes is at the heart of violence against defenders, and Indigenous peoples are paying the highest price,” said an expert at the group. “Populations with ancestral connections to territory often lead the opposition when their lands come under threat from exploitation and encroachment. However, regardless of their vital function, they are often refused acknowledgment and legal redress, and exposed to serious risk for protecting their rightful territories.”

Nation-Specific Statistics and Unrecorded Cases

Julia’s was the only incident recorded in her country last year, although it fitted a pattern of the targeting of Mapuche advocates in the country. The nation of Colombia reported forty-eight cases, making it the deadliest nation in total for environmental defenders, then came Guatemala with 20 cases, the deadliest country by population. The country of Mexico had 19 cases, placing it at number three overall.

Incomplete data remains an issue, especially in Asia and Africa, which registered 16 and 9 instances each, the monitor said. Overall, last year the fewest cases of killings and disappearances of land activists were documented in ten years.

The lead researcher, who led the investigation for Global Witness, commented: “It would be gratifying to report that this suggests a reduction of violence and an enhancement in the situation for defenders, but sadly that’s not the case. Human rights defenders confront realities of brutality that go far beyond murder. What violence often does is transform, grow more complex, change its face.”

Continuing Fight for Justice

Chuñil’s family have persisted in seeking legal resolution but their activism has made them a target of threats and intimidation, as well. In April, two animals from her property that they had intended to sell to fund legal costs were found killed, one shot and another by toxins. “This is primarily, a deliberate effort to prevent us from pursuing this case,” her child a family member told the watchdog.

The group’s report urges governments to take steps to halt the impunity of the perpetrators of land activists by addressing the lack of legal entitlements activists have over property, reinforcing weak national legal systems, and guaranteeing endangered advocates are given sufficient government security.

“All we are asking for is a full, fair investigation to be conducted,” San Martín said of his parent’s situation. “It’s been almost a year since she vanished and we’re still in the dark about what happened. Our demand is those behind this to be identified and prosecuted.”