BINGOs and environmental defenders: NGO complicity in atmospheres of violence and the possibilities for decolonial solidarity with defenders

Over the past decade, several big international non-governmental organizations (BINGOs) have been instrumental in increasing the attention brought to the lived experiences of environmental and land defenders and the atmospheres of violence they face. Among the many BINGOs who frame themselves as ‘supporters’ or ‘protectors’ of environmental and land defenders, several have been complicit in violence perpetrated by park guards and oil companies. In this chapter, we unpack the multifaceted nature of the role BINGOs play in shaping the atmospheres of violence with which environmental defenders contend. While BINGOs have acted as whistle-blowers and advocates providing legal assistance to at-risk defenders, they have also been complicit in ‘green violence’ perpetrated in the name of conservation, and more subtle relationships of ‘partnership’ with industries and specific corporations engaged in neo-colonial forms of extraction and violence against defenders. BINGO complicity with the violence against defenders replays the historical entanglement of some organizations with displacement and violence enacted in the name of colonial era conservation. We argue that BINGOs can, and must, work towards more radical forms of decolonial solidarity with environmental and land defenders who contend with atmospheres of violence that are shaped, in many cases, by conservation efforts and resource extraction activities with which BINGOs may be complicit, either directly or through various forms of ‘partnership’.