On Wednesday, 23 September 2020 (@11:00am in Bogota; 1:00pm in Sao Paulo; 12:00pm in Washington)

Environmental defenders almost always face risks while fighting to safeguard our planet. But increased isolation and harsh quarantine measures decreed by different governments in Latin America have made their work riskier. During this webinar we’ll discuss the implications of some of these policies, how the lack of protection for certain territories has increased threats to biodiversity, as well as the very lives of environmental leaders. And we’ll learn more about how COVID-19 has impacted rural and remote territories, such as the Amazon rainforest, where it spread rapidly.

Among the questions we’ll seek to answer: What are the main threats facing environmental defenders in the region? What impact has confinement caused by the pandemic had on people’s ability to defend vulnerable territories? What challenges do environmental defenders face in promoting and making visible their efforts to preserve natural resources? How does journalism contribute to spreading the work of these defenders and raising to them to the level of public debate?

This webinar will be in Spanish. It is part of the #DefendWithoutFear series, which portrays 15 realities of environmental activists and caregivers in 10 Latin American countries in the midst of restrictive and preventive measures due to covid-19.

It is organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and Agenda Propia and supported by the global non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).