Central America arrives at the fourth Conference of the Parties of the Escazú Agreement (COP4) with an accumulated debt. Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador account for some of the highest levels of violence against defenders of the environment and the territories in the world. Behind these figures are names, communities, bodies, and territories: Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and peasant women who, while defending water, land, forests, and life, face stigmatization, harassment, criminalization, and an unequal burden of care work that the system neither recognizes nor protects.
The Escazú Agreement is, to date, the only international treaty that includes specific provisions to protect environmental and HRs defenders. However, its transformative potential depends on a condition that COP4 must affirm without ambiguity: Escazú will only be transformative if it is implemented through a gender-responsive and intersectional approach. The risks faced by women defenders are differentiated; they are the expression of structural patterns within a capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal system that has historically treated women’s bodies and the territories of peoples as objects of appropriation and control.
In light of this, progress is needed on five fronts. First, moving from declarative frameworks to real implementation, with clear indicators, timelines, and dedicated budgets. Second, ensuring effective and safe participation for women—in all their diversity—within Escazú’s own mechanisms, with linguistic and cultural relevance. Third, adopting protection mechanisms with a collective and community-based approach, recognizing that defenders do not act alone. Fourth, linking the protection of women defenders to territorial security: without collective land titling and an effective state presence, violence does not subside. Fifth, securing sufficient and sustained financing that addresses gender and territorial inequalities, without which no implementation is possible.
COP4 cannot be limited to reaffirming commitments. We need Escazú to become a concrete tool for those who sustain life from the body–land–territory nexus. Defending the environment should not mean putting one’s own existence at risk: that is the true measure of the Agreement, and the standard by which COP4 will be remembered.
By Marcela Marín Platero, Oxfam Central America