People for Planet

Every year on 5 June, World Environment Day reminds us that protecting the planet is a shared responsibility. But climate action is not only about reducing emissions or global agreements, it is also about people, power, justice, and survival.

Around the world, communities are facing worsening climate impacts, from displacement and pollution to devastating natural disasters. While environmental destruction intensifies, the people defending land, water, forests, and human rights are increasingly being silenced, criminalised, and attacked.

At the same time, fossil fuel corporations and powerful interests continue to delay meaningful climate action through lobbying, misinformation, and repression. Environmental and climate justice defenders, particularly Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and activists, are too often excluded from decisions that directly affect their lives and futures.

Yet communities continue to resist, organise, and imagine alternatives. Across the globe, citizen movements are fighting for cleaner energy, stronger environmental protections, and a more just future for all.

According to the Business and Human Right Centre’s 2025 report, out of 800 attacks against people raising concerns about business-related human rights abuses, three quarters were against climate, land and/or environmental defenders. Mining, fossil fuels and agribusiness, leading drivers of deforestation, were linked to the highest number of attacks.  

The CIVICUS Monitor’s People Power Under Attack 2025 report identified the detention of HRDs as the third most common civic space violation, noting that those working on environmental, Indigenous and land rights are often targeted with harassment, arbitrary detention and prosecution. The State of Civil Society 2026 report similarly documents cases from Indonesia to Peru where environmental defenders have faced assault, arrest and fatal force. 

These patterns are also reflected in the Stand As My Witness campaign, which continues to spotlight the imprisonment of Cambodian environmental activists from Mother Nature Cambodia and Mexican Indigenous and land rights defender Kenia Hernández. 

People for Planet is a global digital campaign amplifying the voices of local communities, activists, and allies working toward climate justice. Through people-powered storytelling, we aim to move beyond institutional conversations and highlight the lived realities behind the climate crisis.

Because environmental justice and civic freedoms cannot be separated. Protecting the planet also means protecting the people defending it.

Join us by sharing your story and becoming part of a growing global movement for climate justice.

#PeopleForPlanet #WorldEnvironmentDay

This effort was co-supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Affairs.