Whereas rising instances of environmental crimes, land grabbing, unregulated and illegal natural resource destruction and extraction, and irresponsible infrastructure development threaten biodiversity and rural and Indigenous community livelihoods in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is home to 40 percent of the world’s species and more than 24 percent of the Earth’s forests; Whereas harassment, threats, assaults, and killings against environmental and land defenders protesting such crimes and development have increased throughout the region since 2018; Whereas, according to Global Witness, Latin America is the deadliest region in the world for environmental and land defenders, with nearly 75 percent of the 200 known attacks against such defenders during 2021 taking place in the region, including— (1) in Mexico, where 54 environmental and land defenders were murdered in 2021, representing the highest number of such murders in any country that year; (2) in Colombia, where 33 environmental and land defenders were murdered during 2021, representing the second highest number of such murders in any country that year; (3) in Brazil, where 342 environmental and land defenders have been murdered since 2012, representing the highest number of such murders of any country since the reporting of such murders began; and (4) in Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil, where 78 percent of the attacks against environmental and land defenders in the Amazon region occurred; Whereas more than 25 percent of the attacks on environmental and land defenders during 2021 were reportedly linked to resource exploitation, including logging, mining, large scale agribusiness, hydroelectric dams, and other infrastructure; Whereas, approximately 40 to 60 percent of logging activities in the Peruvian Amazon are illegal, according to INTERPOL, and approximately 95 percent of deforestation in Brazil in 2021 was irregular, according to the Brazilian Annual Land Use and Land Cover Mapping Project