Land and environmental defenders are a major bulwark against environmental destruction and biodiversity loss resulting from unsustainable nature resource extraction. Resultant conflicts can lead to violence against and deaths of these defenders. Along with mounting environmental pressures, homicides of these defenders are increasing globally. Yet, this issue has only recently started to receive scientific attention. While existing studies indicate the importance of socio-economic processes in driving such murders, spatially explicit global analyses considering environmental components are largely missing. Here, we take a broad spatial approach to assess relative contributions of environmental factors to the killing of environmental defenders. We find higher rates of such homicides are typically found in areas where limited or underutilized resources (e.g., freshwater, land and forests) are more available. Our results point towards a prevalent global land scarcity that results in industries targeting the last remaining strongholds for biodiversity and the environmental defenders within.

中文翻译：

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对大自然最后据点的土地和环境捍卫者的威胁。


土地和环境捍卫者是防止因不可持续的自然资源开采而造成的环境破坏和生物多样性丧失的主要堡垒。由此产生的冲突可能导致针对这些维权者的暴力行为甚至死亡。随着环境压力的增加，这些维权者的凶杀案在全球范围内不断增加。然而，这个问题最近才开始受到科学界的关注。虽然现有研究表明社会经济过程在推动此类谋杀中的重要性，但考虑环境因素的空间明确的全球分析在很大程度上缺失。在这里，我们采用广泛的空间方法来评估环境因素对杀害环境捍卫者的相对影响。我们发现，此类凶杀案的发生率较高，通常发生在资源有限或未充分利用的地区（例如淡水、土地和森林）。我们的研究结果表明，全球普遍存在土地稀缺，导致各行业瞄准生物多样性和环境捍卫者最后的据点。