Stand for the Land

Sign the letter online

In solidarity with the defenders of Guapinol and the San Pedro sector in Honduras, we are seeking to collect 32,000 signatures on a letter to the Honduran ambassador to Canada by February 25, 2024. A Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada delegation will meet the ambassador and hand her the letter during the spring of 2024.

Act now! Sign the letter!

Her Excellency Beatriz Valle
Ambassador of Honduras


Madam Ambassador,

We in Canada are deeply concerned about how some of your compatriots who are defending their water sources, forests and territories are being treated. We are particularly afraid for those seeking to protect the Montaña de Botaderos – Carlos Escaleras National Park and the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers on which they depend for their livelihoods in Tocoa in the Colón Department.

Since 2018, water and environmental defenders from this region have been the victims of smear campaigns, criminalized and arbitrarily detained. Three of them have even been murdered since January 2023. These people are only peacefully contesting the legality of the Inversiones Los Pinares iron mine, whose concession to operate in the national park appears to have been granted in an irregular manner.

In solidarity with the defenders in the Guapinol community, the San Pedro sector and their families, we therefore call on the Government of Honduras to:

  1. Strengthen existing protection mechanisms and ensure their effective implementation so as to guarantee the safety, physical integrity and psychological well-being of all human rights and environmental defenders.

  2. Investigate, arrest and prosecute everyone involved in the assassination of the three defenders who died in 2023.

  3. Provide full and fair reparations to the families of three slain human rights defenders and the Guapinol Eight, who were unjustly detained, some for 914 days.

  4. Restore the protected areas of Carlos Escaleras National Park; compel the mining company to leave; and repair the environmental damage it has caused.

  5. Cancel all mining projects that hold irregularly issued licenses to address the source of much of the violence suffered by environmental defenders in Guapinol and San Pedro sector, and across Honduras.

The thousands of Canadians who have endorsed this letter are looking forward to the Government of Honduras acting to protect the constitutional rights to life and dignity of Honduran land and environmental defenders.

Yours sincerely,

Please fill out the form below and click the Sign the letter button. You will receive a copy of the message.
Your personal information will remain strictly confidential.

202309 Letter Stand for the Land EN
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Gather signatures in your community

If you prefer to spread the campaign message in person, you can print out the letter, collect as many signatures as possible in your community, and send them to us by February 25, 2024 :

By mail to:

Development and Peace – Caritas Canada

555 René-Lévesque Blvd. West, 8th Floor,
Montreal QC H2Z 1B1

Or by email to: action@devp.org

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Spread the word

Please feel free to share the petition addressed to the Honduran ambassador to Canada, and spread the word about the fight being waged by environmental and human rights defenders in the communities of Guapinol and the San Pedro sector of Honduras. Here are some tips to help you do this:

  • Follow Development and Peace – Caritas Canada @DevPeace on FacebookTwitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, and repost our content on your own pages!

  • Use our social media banners to showcase your willingness to Stand for the Land!

  • Do not forget to use the following hashtags: #StandfortheLand #CreateHope #Guapinol

  • Share our campaign videos or the Guapinol timeline.

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