New Report Highlights Challenges Faced By Environmental Defenders, Featuring Congolese Award-winning Environmentalist

A new report drawing attention to the growing challenges faced by environmental defenders has been launched Thursday during New York Climate Week at the Ford Foundation office.

The report, released by the Global Climate Legal Defence, is titled “The Dangerous Lives of Climate Defenders.”

The report profiled 16 environmental activists, including Congolese environmentalist Rodrigue Katembo who has been targeted with charges of murder and arson due to his efforts to protect Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Serving as a central sector warden of Virunga National Park, Katembo has long been at the forefront of defending Virunga from illegal activities such as wildlife trafficking and oil exploration. He won the 2017 Goldman Environmental Prize for his undercover work that exposed illegal activities by British oil company, Soco, which saved the national park from further destruction.

His activism has put him in conflict with powerful individuals — in government and the oil industry — in the country, leading to the recent criminal charges that he and his lawyers say are false and attempts to silence him and restrict him from protecting the park.

The charges against Katembo are also perceived to be a retaliation for his whistleblowing in August 2023, in which he accused several individuals at the provincial and national levels of being involved in the destruction of the park’s biodiversity and illegal sale of park land.

Katembo’s trial is currently ongoing in the North Kivu military court in Congo.

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