The Philippines remains the deadliest country in Asia for land and environmental defenders, according to a new report by the non-profit Global Witness.
In its report, Global Witness says it could verify the killings of 124 land and environmental defenders worldwide in 2025. While the majority, 85% of cases, occurred in Latin America, Asia accounted for 12% of the deaths with 12 defenders killed in the Philippines and one person killed for each of India, Indonesia and Turkey.
The Philippines remains the deadliest country in Asia for the thirteenth consecutive year. Its 12 documented cases in 2025 represent the highest total recorded in any single country outside Latin America, the report says.
State forces played a central role in the violence against environmental and land defenders in the country, with the Philippine military suspected of participating in five of the 12 killings amid expanded rural counterinsurgency campaigns and resource extraction projects, according to the report.
“The report adds an important dimension to what we already know about the situation of land and environmental defenders in the Philippines,” Manila-based environmental advocacy group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (PNE) told Mongabay in an emailed statement. “Attacks against defenders are entrenched in state policies and structures that facilitate extractive and development projects.”
Global Witness’ report adds that killings “are only the most extreme form of reprisal that defenders face.” Beyond lethal violence, environmental defenders face a rising tide of legal harassment, criminalization, and smear campaigns, it says.
In the Philippines, for example, the rights body KARAPATAN has documented the widespread use of “red tagging” or falsely labeling activists as communist insurgents or terrorists, with terror charges brought against 227 activists in 2025.
Kalikasan PNE said the Philippine administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has expanded the country’s policy framework to allow foreign and corporate access to the country’s natural resources and the fast-tracking of critical mineral extraction for global supply chains.
“For environmental defenders, this means that the expansion of extractive industries is continuously being backed by an institutional and policy architecture designed to facilitate access to territory and resources,” Kalikasan PNE said. “Hence, communities resisting mining, energy and other destructive projects have to confront both private corporations and state institutions that facilitate and protect these investments.”
To protect defenders, Kalikasan PNE called on Philippine authorities to end impunity, repeal the Anti-Terrorism Act and dismantle repressive mechanisms such as the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). and. It added the government must “review and suspend projects and policies” that damage the environment and displace and violate the rights of Indigenous peoples and communities.
“More fundamentally, the government must pursue genuine national industrialization and a development policy genuinely upholding the interests of the Filipino people,” Kalikasan PNE’s statement said. “The country’s natural resources should not primarily serve as sources of raw materials and profits for foreign corporations and capitalist interests.”
Banner image: Taganito Mining Corporation’s open-pit nickel mine in Surigao del Norte province. Image by Ryan Dael/PH-EITI via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
