Defenders’ School visits UPC for a necessary dialogue on socio-environmental conflicts.

May 08, 2026

At the UPC's Campus Nord, social leaders from the Philippines and Colombia met with students of the Master’s in Sustainability and Strategies for a Just Global Transition (MUSE) to share their experiences resisting global socio-environmental conflicts.

Within the framework of the fifth edition of the Defenders School (April 21–29), organized by International Action for Peace, on April 22 several social leaders visited the University Master's Degree in Sustainability and Strategies for a Just Global Transition (MUSE) at our Barcelona campus. Coming from various environmental activism organizations in the Philippines and Colombia, they shared realities that, despite the geographical distance, present deep similarities in both their causes and their effects.

What is the Defenders School?

The Defenders School has established itself as a leading international space for meeting, training, and exchanging experiences among human rights defenders from different territories around the world. This project brings together defenders working in contexts of high social and political conflict with the goal of strengthening their capacities, building international solidarity networks, and making visible the multiple forms of defense of life, territory, and fundamental rights. Throughout its four previous editions, the School has connected experiences from countries such as Colombia, the Philippines, Brazil, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Kurdistan, addressing key issues such as climate justice, cultural rights, or peace processes.

In a context of multi-scale crisis, the very contradictions of our economic, social, and cultural system cannibalize the resources upon which it depends. However, this cannibalization is not equal for everyone; rather, the Global North has historically benefited from the expropriation and exploitation of natural resources and labor from the Global South. These dynamics violate human rights and destroy multiple forms of life, as well as the possibility of living with dignity in many corners of the world.

This perverse situation, intertwined with the political contexts of each region, generates a series of conflicts at multiple levels that it is essential to understand in depth.

Understanding their local implications allows us to reveal within the collective imagination all the facets of a problem that, far from being purely "climatic," uncovers the interconnection between what is commonly understood under the umbrella of "ecology" and other fields, such as economy, culture, or politics.

🇵🇭 Philippines: The Paradox of Hunger in a Resource Paradise

The session begins with the testimony of Ariel Casilao, national chairperson of the Union of Agricultural Workers (UMA), chairperson of the Anakpawis peasant and worker party, and member of the Board of Trustees of the Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG). Ariel exposes a Philippine reality as harsh as it is suffocating.

The Southeast Asian archipelago possesses immense wealth in resources and production capacity: raw materials, metals, solar energy, fertile soils, and vast water reserves. However:

90% of the Philippine population lives below the poverty line

1% of the citizenry concentrates and increases their capital in an exclusionary way

How can this gap be explained? Ariel summarizes it forcefully:

"Filipinos work lands they do not own"

Large foreign corporations, allied with a local landowning elite, exploit the territory under the logic of the global market. This scenario strips citizens of any agency over their own resources; a structure of dispossession that, added to the political juncture and the country's historical weight, leaves zero margin for freedom and dignity.

"Hungry & Angry": When Eating is a Political Act

Under the slogan "Filipinos are hungry & angry", communities speak out against the extreme precariousness of a system where families cannot afford the most basic elements for survival. Associations such as UMA or CPDG fight for what should be an elementary right: the possibility of a dignified life.

However, this defense is met with state repression. The prohibition of citizen and labor organization has led to these groups being labeled as "terrorists". This label functions as a tool of legitimation to exercise brutal violence and persecute environmental activists, lawyers, and journalists who risk their lives in defense of the land.

Exporting Sugar, Importing Rice: The Absurdity of Food Insecurity

Food sovereignty in the Philippines is today a painful contradiction. Despite having the capacity to feed its population, government policies have dismantled the local production cycle. Rice, the pillar of Filipino gastronomy, has been displaced by export crops that are not consumed within the territory.

The regression is alarming: the country that in the 90s was a major exporter of rice is now the world's leading importer. In short, local agriculture is focused on feeding other territories while the country is forced to buy abroad what it needs to avoid starvation.

"We produce bananas, pineapples, and sugar for the Middle East, but we do not produce our own food" — Ariel Casilao

The Dark Side of Renewables: Sustainability for Whom?

Cathleen Degz de Guzman, national coordinator of Kalikasan (PNE), reveals the hidden face of projects that, under the seal of sustainability, hide extractivist dynamics. In the Philippines, the proliferation of hydraulic dams, photovoltaic plants, and wind farms is leaving a trail of environmental devastation.

These interventions not only degrade the environment but also involve the violent eradication of local communities. The inhabitants of these territories are persecuted, murdered, or, in the best of cases, forcibly displaced. Cathleen is blunt: the problem is not green development, but ownership and profit. Who owns the energy?

The reality is that this market only benefits that dominant 1%, while the remaining 99% suffer the consequences: droughts, contamination of soil, air, and sea, and systematic state repression.

"The truth is not found in classrooms, but in the streets, on farms, and in factories. Go see it for yourselves." — Cathleen Degz de Guzman

🇨🇴 Colombia: The Peasant Struggle Against the Offensive of Global Capital

In the next phase of the session, we travel 17,000 kilometers from Southeast Asia to land in Colombia. Guillermo Antonio Quintero, a member of the Catatumbo Peasant Association (ASCAMCAT), brings us closer to the reality of this border region with Venezuela.

The name "Catatumbo" comes from indigenous ingenuity and means "the house of thunder," in honor of its unique natural phenomenon. However, this symbolic and natural wealth coexists with a constant threat: the abundance of oil, coal, and water resources has turned the territory into loot for outside interests.

In parallel, from Antioquia and the Andes mountain range, Luis Francisco González Cabrera, an activist in the Peasant Association of the Cimitarra River Valley - National Agroecological Network, exposes the struggle to protect vital areas such as the Serranía de San Lucas. His demand is clear: an increase in "Peasant Reserve Zones (ZRC)". It is not just a request for land; it is a demand for sovereignty so that those who inhabit the soil are those who decide its future, stopping the expansion of industries that operate under a logic of profit maximization over the right to life.

What are these problems?

Oil and coal: A territory ceded to extractivism

In the case of Catatumbo, currently, 80% of the territory is ceded to foreign companies for oil extraction. Added to this is the largest coal reserve in Latin America. In municipalities like Cantagallo, the population has endured more than a century of uninterrupted oil exploitation.

This massive handover of land to private hands is not just an economic figure; it is a direct danger to survival. By leaving management in the hands of external corporations, the ability of local communities to protect their environment is neutralized. The result is a predatory dynamic where the profit leaves the country and the environmental devastation stays home. The environmental impact of these extractivist activities is very serious in itself, but it is further aggravated when local control is so limited.

Gold rush: Mining, lack of control, and armed conflict

This area and its surroundings suffer from fierce interventionism for the extraction of minerals, especially gold. The gold industry, and the enormous economic profit it generates for a few, is intertwined in Colombia with an internal armed conflict that has lasted for decades, leaving more than 10 million victims and millions displaced or in situations of extreme vulnerability.

One of the outcomes of this explosive situation is that mining extraction takes place in a scenario of absolute lack of control, without any type of environmental or political management. The result is entire areas with water shortages, severe soil and air pollution, and a loss of biodiversity that directly threatens the lives of citizens, exposing them to critical levels of precariousness and violence coming from multiple fronts.

Agriculture: Crops at the service of the global market

Another situation arises from the types of crops that have been established in the area in response to global market trends that have little to do with the needs of the country of origin.

We are talking about the well-known palm oil, which requires extensive plantation areas dedicated to African palm leaves, very harmful to the Colombian natural environment (with evident climatic differences compared to the African continent).

On the other hand, it is already known that there are plantations for illicit use production, also subject to relations between armed groups, private companies, and state governments with different interests and capacities to exert pressure on one another.

These plantations, mainly cocaine leaf and some poppy, represent yet another focus for the chronicization of inter- and intra-state violence, which ends up harming the last link in the power chain: the peasantry and the citizens of the region.

"We already know everything that drug trafficking entails..."

Territorial control and repression of freedom

Guillermo exposes the systematic repression suffered by their peoples: from curfews at 6:00 PM to the express prohibition of any form of peasant organization that tries to improve the situation of their land.

Despite this siege, the peasantry and communities have remained organized since the late 90s, fighting daily to reverse a system that prioritizes economic profit for a minority at the cost of the lives of people, animals, and the material environment on which everyone depends.

We cannot close this chronicle without expressing our deepest gratitude to the social leaders who, within the framework of this Defenders School, have crossed oceans to share their testimonies on our campus. Their presence at MUSE has not only been an academic lesson but a mobilizing reminder that sustainability is not a technical concept, but a political struggle for dignity. Hearing their realities in the Philippines and Colombia forces us to face the wounds of a predatory system, but also gives us the hope of their resistance. You are not only benchmarks of courage in contexts of extreme hostility; you are the engine and the absolute motivation for us, from academia and activism, to continue working for that more just, human, and habitable future that we all deserve.

Thank you for teaching us that defending the earth is, ultimately, defending the possibility of a future.