Environmentalists facing escalating threats in Honduras

The dangers of standing up for land rights and the environment will be under the spotlight at the COP31 climate summit in Turkey on Wednesday.

It comes amid growing calls for more recognition and protection for land and human rights defenders, who can face intimidation and violence in many parts of the world.

Among the most dangerous countries is Honduras in Central America, where Kate Varley and cameraman Bram Verbeke travelled to meet some of the activists involved.

Yoni Rivas has spent years living in the shadows.

He avoids public places, rarely stays in one location for long, and travels around in a bulletproof vehicle for his own safety.

His extreme vigilance stems from his work defending farmers' rights in Honduras - work that has made him the target of repeated, credible death threats.

"It is no secret that there is a strategy to assassinate the leadership of the agrarian platform, especially me," he tells us from the relative safety of a cooperative farm in the north of the country.

"There are assessments that reflect a 90% risk of doing human rights defence."

Yoni represents small-scale farmers and cooperatives in the Aguán Valley who say they have been victims of intimidation, violence, forced evictions and landgrabs by criminal groups allegedly linked to powerful agribusiness interests.

And the risks can sometimes be fatal.

Hundreds of farmers and human rights defenders are reported to have been killed in the dispute since 2010 - although most of the crimes go unpunished.

According to the international human rights organisation, Global Witness, Honduras has the highest number of murders of land and environmental defenders per capita in the world.

And yet, Yoni is determined to continue his peaceful campaign for justice.

"We know that on any day we could suffer a criminal attack," he says. "However, love is stronger than fear."

Impact of African palm expansion

At the heart of many of these land disputes is the mass production of an ingredient found in countless everyday items, from shampoo, to chocolate to sliced pan.

That ingredient is palm oil, and in Honduras it was once grown mainly by small-scale farmers as part of a diverse range of crops on the fertile plains of the Aguán Valley,

Today however, African palm oil has become a large-scale lucrative industry dominated by a handful of powerful agribusiness companies and families.

And as the vast plantations of African palm continue to expand, local farmers and cooperatives say they are being pushed off land they have cultivated for generations.

It follows changes to the country’s agrarian law in 1992 which facilitated the transfer of thousands of acres of land from 'campesino’ communities - made up of small-scale farmers - to large agro-industrial firms.

Agrarian groups allege that many of these land transfers were illegal, and say the dispossession and evictions continue to this day.

"It generates terror and fear for farmers at the national level," says Yoni. "And it does not allow production to develop calmly in the field."

For Wendy Castro, taking a stand against the dispossession has had grave consequences for her family.

She is a coordinator of the Agrarian Platform, and a member of the El Chile agricultural cooperative, whose farmers claim land was unlawfully transferred to agribusiness interests in the 1990s.

"I have long denounced the forced displacement carried out by criminal groups against farmers. As a result, my brother was murdered, my sister was tortured and forced into exile, and my entire family was driven out of the community where they lived."

"Yet we must continue to tell our story."

"We conduct our protests and activities peacefully and legally," Yoni says. "But we are under permanent attack by governments and also by the criminal structures that operate to protect the interests of the agro-industrial in this region of the Aguán."

These claims have been rejected by large-scale African Palm Oil producers in Honduras, with one of the country’s largest palm oil producers, the Corporación Dinant saying: "We categorically deny allegations of violence against any individual or community where we operate.

"Dinant is a constant victim of coordinated and deliberate efforts to spread false information about the company in an attempt to damage our reputation and gain ownership of land that is legally ours."

And in Honduras, the struggles for land rights extend beyond the palm oil plains.

In 2024, high-profile environmental activist Juan López was shot dead after opposing an iron ore mine outside the city of Tocoa, in a case that drew attention and condemnation around the world, including from the late Pope Francis.

Eight other campaigners also spent more than two years in prison over protests against the same mining project, which they feared was contaminating two of their local rivers - the Río Guapinol and Río San Pedro. They were later acquitted but continue to face threats over their activism.

"To continue fighting is to be aware that we cannot live without water," one of the former detainees, José Cedillo says."We will always keep fighting - for the whole community and even for those who criticize us. Going to prison wasn't easy.It was a bit terrifying, but God gave us strength to go on."

Another local activist, Javier Maradiaga, also vowed to continue protesting in defence of the rivers that have sustained local communities for centuries, though he acknowledges the significant risks involved.

"My family has expressed to me that they wish me to leave the struggle. They fear that something may happen to me."

"But we know that we should not surrender. We are committed to a just cause".

Inversiones Los Pinares, the company behind the controversial iron oxide mine, has previously defended the project on the grounds of economic development and job creation.

The company did not respond to RTÉ’s request for a statement, but told the Guardian newspaper in 2020 that "Inversiones Los Pinares is a serious, responsible company that respects human and environmental rights, and complies with all laws, regulations and operating standards."

As of November 2026, the company and some of its executives are facing legal proceedings over alleged environmental offences.

Legal system 'weaponised against human rights defenders'

And the situation has been growing even more difficult in the past year.

In June, the country's right-leaning government passed a controversial new law which it says is aimed at protecting investment in large-scale agriculture, energy projects and tourism.

But critics say it could come at a devastating cost to rural communities, making it easier for authorities to evict families from land they've lived on and farmed for decades.

Already, more than a thousand eviction notices have been issued, according to the UN, with peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities most impacted.

Read more: 'The sea took everything' - communities at the forefront of the climate crisis

The Honduran Government has previously expressed its commitment to resolving land conflicts through comprehensive and peaceful measures, although international organisations have questioned the extent to which these commitments have been upheld in practice.

"This is an example of how the legal system is weaponised against human rights defenders," says George Redman, Country Director for Irish NGO Trócaire, which supports local Honduran land rights organisations.

"They’re being evicted in many cases by big business, be it mining, hydroelectric power, African Palm. And with the complicity, and sometimes the support, of the government."

"So they’re fighting just to remain in the place they call home - the place that gives them the food that they eat and the water they drink."