"For Latin American Environmentalists, Death Is A Constant Companion"

"Long before gunmen burst into Berta Cáceres Flores’s house in rural Honduras, Beverly Bell gave up any hope that her friend would live to an old age. “This was a marked woman,” said Bell, who kept a long list of the death threats. “Everyone knew it.”

The March 3 slaying of the internationally known environmentalist was condemned from the State Department to the Vatican. But for activists who work in Latin America, Cáceres’s murder was tragically familiar.

Two-thirds of environmentalists who died violently around the world since 2002 lost their lives in that region. For the five years ending in 2014, more than 450 were killed, according to an international watchdog group. More than half were in Honduras and Brazil. "

Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post March 25, 2016.