Land defenders brutally killed after exposing illegal logging

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Environmental defenders brutally killed after exposing illegal logging

On 26th February 2025, environmental defender Juan Bautista Silva Ventura and his son Juan Antonio Silva Hernández disappeared after travelling to an area near Las Botijas, Comayagua, to document alleged illegal logging. Their dismembered bodies were found the following day. Silva’s family reported that, on the day of the killings, he received a call from an unknown number from someone allegedly posing as an official shortly before he and his son disappeared.

Silva had spent more than two decades involved in community forest protection and was a founding member of the Zambrano Agroforestry Cooperative. A May 2025 report by Independent Forest Monitoring (MFI) documented that he had identified a new incursion by illegal loggers and filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which asked him additional photographic evidence. His relatives also told The Guardian that Silva had repeatedly reported illegal logging but that his complaints had rarely resulted in action. They said he had survived a machete attack in 2020.

The killings occurred amid persistent violence against land and environmental defenders in Honduras. Global Witness recorded 18 killings of land and environmental defenders in Honduras in 2023, the highest per-capita figure worldwide that year. On 3rd March 2025, the National Human Rights Commission (CONADEH) reported that around 35 land, territorial and environmental defenders had died in violent circumstances between 2022 and early 2025 and described this work as a high-risk activity.

Tolupán leader faces renewed death threats amid disputes over ancestral territory

From February 2025, renewed threats and intimidation severely restricted the movement of Ramón Santiago Matute Ávila, an Indigenous Tolupán leader and president of the Tribal Directive Council of San Francisco de Locomapa, Yoro, and his family. For months, Matute and his family had been unable to move freely beyond their home and community and had struggled to obtain food because Matute feared he would be killed. Journalists attempting to reach the community also reported being stopped at a checkpoint controlled by individuals locally described as the ‘mafia tolupana’, a term used by Matute and other defenders for networks they accuse of intimidating people who oppose logging and mining activities.

Matute’s current situation forms part of a longstanding pattern of threats linked to his defence of Tolupán land, forests and natural resources. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has included him among beneficiaries of precautionary measure MC 416-13, first granted in 2013 and expanded in 2023. In its latest review, the Commission found that members of the community continued to face a serious and urgent risk to their lives and personal integrity and documented killings, death threats, attacks on homes and crops, displacement and intimidation linked with their opposition to natural resource exploitation.

Matute’s immediate family has also faced violence. On 25th February 2019, gunmen killed his father, José Salomón Matute, and his brother, Juan Samael Matute, both Tolupán members of the Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y la Justicia (MADJ). José Salomón was a beneficiary of the IACHR precautionary measures. The IACHR called on Honduras to investigate whether the killings were connected to their work defending Indigenous rights and the environment. The following month, Matute and his family were reportedly forced to leave their home after their plot of land and settlement were set on fire.

The violence extends beyond Matute’s family. Mongabay reported that at least 120 Indigenous Tolupán people had been killed over the previous 25 years in the context of conflicts over forests and ancestral territory. Authorities said they had suspended forestry management plans in response to community complaints and were investigating alleged irregularities. Yet illegal extraction and intimidation continued. Criminal proceedings have also involved LACHANSA, a mining company operating in the area.

Garífuna organisation OFRANEH targeted by hate campaign and armed attacks amid ongoing land disputes

Between 6th and 9th October 2025, several Honduran media programmes broadcast statements concerning the Black Fraternal Organisation of Honduras (OFRANEH) and Garífuna communities engaged in territorial claims. According to civil society organisations, programmes including Televicentro’s TN5 Matutino, Hoy Mismo and Frente a Frente, as well as other media outlets, portrayed Garífuna communities as armed “invaders” associated with drugs and violence. The organisations described the coverage as racist and stigmatising and said that statements from business representatives and public tourism bodies were used to discredit Garífuna territorial claims. OFRANEH and ESCR-Net linked the attacks to the hostile media environment generated by the preceding broadcasts.

The campaign coincided with the tenth anniversary of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights judgments concerning the Garífuna communities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra, issued in October 2015. In those cases, the Court found Honduras responsible for violations of the communities’ collective property rights and ordered measures concerning their ancestral territories. The Court issued a further judgment concerning the Garífuna community of San Juan in August 2023. The Court continues to supervise compliance with these judgments.

Ahead of the attacks, IM-Defensoras and the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras warned that associating OFRANEH with armed groups, drugs and criminal activity could increase risks to Garífuna defenders and communities and contribute to further violence. OFRANEH and the organisations said the narratives sought to delegitimise efforts to recover ancestral territory and reinforce claims that Garífuna communities were unlawfully occupying land.

On 11th October, OFRANEH reported two armed incidents in communities whose territorial rights were the subject of Inter-American Court judgments. In San Juan, the organisation said an armed individual fired at members of the community. In Triunfo de la Cruz, it reported that a group of armed men entered the community and fired towards residents and homes. Radio Progreso, Criterio and ESCR-Net subsequently reported the incidents.

On 16th October, OFRANEH filed a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office against Corporación Televicentro and several of its executives and presenters, alleging incitement to discrimination under article 213 of the Criminal Code. OFRANEH said the broadcasts portrayed Garífuna communities as criminals, invaders and enemies of development. The following day, the Honduran College of Journalists rejected the allegations against the journalists concerned and warned against using legal proceedings.

Journalist killed despite state protection measures

On 1st June 2025, two men travelling on a motorcycle shot and killed Salvadoran-born journalist Javier Antonio Hércules Salinas while he was driving a taxi in Santa Rosa de Copán, western Honduras. Hércules worked for local outlet A Todo Noticias (ATN) and drove a taxi alongside his journalism. According to police and media reports, the assailants intercepted his vehicle in the early hours of the morning, shot him several times and fled.

Hércules had worked as a local reporter for several years and covered issues of public interest across the Copán region. At the time of his killing, Honduras’s National Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders, Journalists, Social Communicators and Justice Operators provided him with protection measures. He had joined the mechanism in 2023 following threats and an attempted kidnapping.

Following his death, Human Rights Secretary Héctor Longino Becerra confirmed that the protection mechanism had granted Hércules five state protection measures, including police patrols near his home and a designated police liaison. The authorities did not provide him with a permanent security escort because, according to Becerra, the mechanism’s risk assessment did not warrant that level of protection.

In response, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras called on the authorities to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation, including whether Hércules’s journalistic work motivated or was otherwise connected to the attack.

Armed forces seek disclosure of confidential sources from 12 media outlets

In late January and early February 2025, journalists and media outlets began receiving official notices related to an investigation that the Armed Forces had initiated in November 2024. Military legal auditor Colonel Max Alonso Hernández Marcía had asked the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate 12 media outlets and journalists, with a view to possible legal action over reports concerning the armed forces and their senior leadership. Investigators subsequently asked the outlets to identify confidential sources used in their reporting.

Media reports identified El Heraldo, La Prensa, Radio Cadena Voces, La Tribuna, Radio América, Abriendo Brecha, CHTV, Hable Como Habla, Q’Hubo TV, Hondudiario, Criterio HN and Noticias 24/7 among the outlets under investigation. One strand of the investigation concerned an October 2024 report by Hondudiario about alleged internal tensions within the armed forces and claims relating to the conduct of General Roosevelt Hernández, then Chief of the Joint Staff.

Hernández subsequently acknowledged that he had ordered officials to identify people who had provided information to journalists, although he denied that he intended to intimidate the press. He said the investigation sought to establish who had provided information that he considered false about the military leadership.

On 12th February 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that attempts to compel journalists to disclose their sources threatened press freedom.