The Green Match Fund: environmental rights defenders need you
From 20 - 27 April, your donation to PBI UK’s work with environmental rights defenders will be doubled!
PBI UK is delighted to have been chosen for the Big Give’s Green Match Fund this year. This week-long fundraising campaign aims to raise millions for some of the UK’s best charities working on environmental issues. The match funding appeal comes at a vital time: environmental activists are our first line of defence against the climate crisis, but they're facing unprecedented attacks. That’s why, this week, we’re asking for your help to raise £10,000 - which will be doubled by the Green Match Fund - to roll out our life-saving protection to more defenders, and launch new programmes that empower them to tackle the biggest challenges facing our planet.
Remember, for every £10 you donate, we receive £20.
So please give generously.
Over 400 human rights defenders were murdered for their peaceful work last year, and in the first few months of 2023, dozens of environmental activists have already lost their lives and liberty - mostly for opposing the imposition of extractive industries on their land, water, and forests. We cannot allow them to be silenced. From communities in resistance to lawyers litigating big business: land, environmental, and Indigenous rights defenders are on the front line of the fight for our planet’s future. Their peaceful resistance keeps forests in the ground, toxins out of our water, and people in their homes. It is clear: to save our Earth, we need to protect our defenders.
Every day, PBI helps thousands of people to safely defend their rights. Our diverse teams of international volunteers stand alongside activists at risk, using our unique model of protective accompaniment to keep them alive. We work with environmental movements to identify the tools and networks they need to ensure their work thrives. And we provide the resources they need to challenge vested interests. Together, we’re making sure that when activists speak out, the world listens.
This week, we’re asking you to donate to our appeal to support environmental activists.
Because when defenders are protected and empowered, great things happen.
Your donation will be used to launch programmes and campaigns that improve the security of nearly 2,000 communities, organisations and individuals at risk. Your funds will mean our work reaches some of the world’s bravest and most transformative environmental movements - those holding polluters and abusers to account, protecting ecosystems, and defending the rights of the most marginalised.
Will you show environmentalists that they are not alone, and that the world is paying attention?
Will you keep them safe, so they can change the world?
Where your money will go:
Your gift this week funds strategic work that makes a difference:
Defending the environment is being criminalised, with many activists facing trumped-up charges designed to silence them. With your donation, we can mobilise the international legal community to help defenders overturn unjust convictions and advocate for reforms.
The movement is stronger when we learn together. We’re raising money to bring defenders from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America together to exchange strategies and develop new methodologies through which to keep themselves safe and campaign for environmental change.
Having someone by your side can be the difference between life and death. To respond to the rise in reprisals against land, environmental, and Indigenous rights defenders, we need to recruit and train more volunteers to provide the long-term protective accompaniment that keeps defenders safe.
The laws governing how companies and financiers interact with communities are not fit for purpose. Help us build a campaign for laws that oblige businesses to identify, prevent and mitigate human rights and environmental impacts in their supply chains, and to ensure there are consequences if they don’t.
