[MEXICO CITY/RIO DE JANEIRO/CAIRO/MANILA] Mexican ecologist Valeria Souza Saldívar has experienced years of threats and intimidation, coming face to face with machete-wielding land defenders – all in the pursuit of science.

She is one of an increasing number of scientists around the world who are at risk from governments, corporations, drug cartels, or military forces, as a direct result of the research they are undertaking.

These risks are increasing globally, a SciDev.Net investigation reveals, gathering evidence from scientists in multiple regions, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

Souza is a specialist in the evolutionary ecology of bacteria and a researcher at the Institute of Ecology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

She has worked for more than 25 years in the 300 plus pools that make up Cuatro Ciénegas, in the desert of Coahuila, northern Mexico, known for its extraordinary diversity of microorganisms. Among them are stromatolites, mineral structures that are among the oldest evidence of life on Earth.

In 2002, Souza received news that would change her life: in the Hundido Valley, 275 kilometers from Cuatro Ciénegas, 200 wells would be built to extract water from the ground. Each one would irrigate 70 hectares of alfalfa that local producers could sell to companies such as the dairy firm Lala to feed their cattle.

“At that moment I became an environmentalist,” says Souza. “I went to extract DNA from the water of the wells in El Hundido to compare it with the DNA of several sites within Cuatro Ciénegas … And I was able to show them that they were connected.”

The connection meant that it was the same ecosystem and that building so many wells would have a detrimental impact on it, on the stromatolites and on the site’s rich biodiversity.

So, Souza decided to invest all her energy in stopping it. She was soon able to convince Lala to stop buying alfalfa from the area, but her fight to protect the water in Cuatro Ciénegas continued.

“I became public enemy number one for a lot of people,” she says. From local cattle companies to so-called “ejidatarios” – community members who have a right to the land – and even hotels.

Her environmentalism came at a cost. For more than a decade, the researcher received threats from the media and ejidatarios, as well as extortion attempts by representatives of local companies and the government who wanted to extract the water.

“I was stepping on the toes of a multi-million-dollar business,” she says.

Of all the threats she received, there was one that frightened her. “The rich people of Cuatro Ciénegas, who had made their wealth from alfalfa for the cows, paid local newspapers to tell people that if they saw my truck to throw rocks at me,” she explains, adding that this led to a demonstration of stone-laden ejidatarios, threatening to assault her.

In 2020, Souza decided to close one of the canals to prevent further extraction of water from Cuatro Ciénegas. A group of ejidatarios arrived with machetes in hand and beat her colleagues. Souza was saved because she hid in her truck.

“That’s when my life was in danger. They didn’t use the machetes against my friends, but they did beat them and used the machetes to destroy the work we had done.”

However, Souza says her environmental activity, together with her scientific work, has paid off. Although alfalfa planting continues, Cuatro Ciénegas has gained visibility and foundations such as Lala’s and Carlos Slim’s, Mexico’s richest man, have invested in protecting the site.

‘Chilling environment’

“Threats to scientific freedom … but also threats to the responsible practice of science, are rising globally,” says Vivi Stavrou, executive secretary of the committee for freedom and responsibility in science, at the International Science Council (ISC).

These threats take various forms, according to Stavrou, ranging from censorship to the environment becoming “more chilling” for scientists to express themselves and publish their research.

“It can stretch to actual threats to the freedom of the scientists themselves … not being able to get a visa, not being able to travel … to scientists being taken to court because of their research, to people being jailed – and we’ve had instances where people have been killed,” she adds.

Threats to scientists doing environmental research are increasingly common, says Stavrou, “particularly when it’s got to do with environmental change”.

“In particular, Latin America and the Caribbean, it’s a very dangerous place to be a scientist,” she says.

Rodrigo Medellín is a researcher at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who studies bats. His field work consists of visiting caves, usually at night, to set up nets and observe their activity.

Medellín told SciDev.Net that for more than a decade, since former Mexican President Felipe Calderón started a war against drug trafficking in 2006, his scientific work has been significantly affected by organised crime.

Many of the caves he visits are located near sites where poppy or marijuana is planted, or along routes used for smuggling drugs to the US.

Park rangers in the El Pinacate reserve in Sonora, in the north of the country, often warn the researcher to avoid certain caves and earlier this year he suspended a planned visit after one such warning.

“The rangers told me: ‘Don’t come, it’s horrible, they have killed tourists … they have been threatening people, they have beaten local ejidatarios’.”

Medellín takes these warnings very seriously because he knows that being a scientist does not make him immune to aggression.

In July 2023, Gabriel Trujillo, a young botanist studying for his doctorate at the University of Berkeley, US, was murdered by criminal groups while collecting medicinal plants in the mountains of Sonora, an area disputed by different drug cartels.

In 2020 when Medellin and his students were doing field work in the Juxtlahuaca Caves in Guerrero, in the southwest of the country, they too came face to face with armed men, demanding to know what they were doing.

They escaped unscathed, but Medellin says: “Organised crime has definitely impacted us.

“We are not as free to move around as we were 15 or 20 years ago. Today you have to be extremely careful.”

Women at risk

Colombian researcher Ivonne Garzón Orduña is a curator of the national insect collection at the Autonomous University of Mexico’s Institute of Biology, where she dedicates her time to documenting the country’s diversity of moths.

Like Medellín, Orduña visits nature reserves at night, since the moths’ activity starts at 6pm and lasts until dawn. Mostly accompanied by other female students, she is acutely aware of the risks she faces, in a country where between nine and ten women are killed every day, according to Amnesty International.

“Being out in the field in the dark of night makes me feel like I’m at risk,” she says. “I always think, at what moment can something happen to us? I try to go with the [university] vans to make it as official as possible, but the perception of risk is permanent.”

Once, when she was doing fieldwork in Ajusco, a national park in Mexico City, Orduña was interrogated by strangers about what she was doing there. “At midnight, in the middle of nowhere, this kind of intimidation makes you say: ‘I’m not going back to this place.’”

Prompted by these experiences, Orduña has become a great planner. “I plan a lot where we’re going to go, where we’re going to stay, where we’re going to eat. I always contact someone local. Nothing is left to chance.”

Death threats

In 2022, the murder of Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Araújo Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips during a trip to the Javari Valley, one of Brazil’s largest indigenous lands, in the Amazon, gained worldwide media attention.

The case was symptomatic of the violence and uncertainty faced by indigenous peoples, riverside communities and others, including researchers.

Pedro Rapozo is a professor at the Amazonas State University in Tabatinga, Amazonas state, on Brazil’s triple border with, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela.

Four times threatened with death, Rapozo was shot in 2019, but survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

His research into socio-environmental conflicts in protected land territories literally puts him in the firing line. He is also involved in teaching and outreach in indigenous communities and is a member of a technical panel on traditional communities at the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, which analyses cases involving litigation, violence and violations of indigenous peoples’ rights.

These protected territories are being heavily impacted by groups involved in cocaine production, says Rapozo. According to the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, Tabatinga is one of the main entry points for cocaine in Brazil and smuggling has been significantly increasing – from 38.5 tonnes per year between 2013 and 2017 to 86.6 tonnes per year from 2018 to 2023.

Drug traffickers, says Rapozo, are not only interested in cocaine, but also exploit natural resources within these territories.

“There is a search to expand their profits in the region through activities such as illegal mining, the trafficking of fishes and turtles, the illegal exploitation of indigenous labour, and timber,” Rapozo explains.

“Perhaps the biggest challenge is the fact that in this triple border region there is the entire federal, municipal and state public security apparatus, but 100 kilometres away these territories are totally unattended – this combined with this high socio-economic vulnerability,” he adds.

Academic freedom declining

Stories of this kind are numerous in Latin America. But academic freedom is under threat globally, according to analysis of this year’s Academic Freedom Index (AFI).

The study of 179 countries, shows that academic freedom is in decline in 23 countries and increasing in only ten countries. It found that 3.6 billion people now live in countries where academic freedom is completely restricted.

The index looks at risks ranging from non-academic actors meddling in university programmes to further personal or political agendas, to constraints on scientists’ ability to communicate their research due to restrictions on civil liberties.

“The latest findings indicate that academic freedom remains very low in countries primarily in East and Southeast Asia, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa region,” says Angelo Vito Panaro, a postdoctoral researcher working on the AFI at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg’s FAU Institute of Political Science, who worked on the index.

However, the decline in academic freedom is “not significantly more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries compared to high-income ones”, stresses Panaro.

“Interestingly, our studies show a correlation between rising polarisation and declining academic freedom,” he explains, citing as examples countries where populist leaders have come to power in recent years, such as the US, Italy and Hungary.

Nevertheless, low- and middle-income countries are being buffeted by multiple crises, which can exacerbate existing tensions and heighten risks for scientists.

“We live in an era of polycrisis,” adds Stavrou, of the ISC, “where there’s a convergence of environmental crisis, extreme inequalities within and between countries, wars and humanitarian emergencies, the pandemic and various other factors … that threaten scientists as individuals but also threaten the existence of scientific institutions and systems.”

Gaza conflict

Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in Gaza. Here, the conflict has put the lives of every citizen at risk. However, a number of scientists appear to have been targeted specifically because of their work.

Sufian Tayeh, former president of the Islamic University of Gaza, was not involved in any political activity, according to those who knew him, but he lost his life in the war that has been raging since October 2023, for no reason other than being a physicist.

Tayeh, his wife and children were assassinated in a missile attack that targeted their home. All the buildings of the university that he ran were destroyed, under the pretext that they were being used as a camp for producing weapons and training Hamas intelligence operators. This was the explanation given in a statement by the Israeli Defence Forces, but rejected by everyone who dealt with Tayeh.

A professor in theoretical physics and applied mathematics, Tayeh was a winner of the Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab researchers and was appointed in early 2023 to be UNESCO Chair in Physics, Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Palestine.

Anas Alkanoo, a physics lecturer at the university who was close to Tayeh, tells SciDev.Net: “He was not known for any party or political affiliation. He was an independent man who devoted his life and effort to science, and from within the besieged Gaza Strip he was able to achieve scientific successes that made him one of the most prominent scientists in his field.”

Alkanoo also struggled to carry out his work as a scientist in Gaza. He was preparing his doctoral thesis in physics between the Islamic University of Gaza and the Malaysia University of Science and Technology, but was unable to implement the practical side of it, lacking the materials he needed. Israeli forces have banned chemicals from entering Gaza, in case they are used in manufacturing weapons.

Alkanoo says the silver nitrate he needed for his thesis around the manufacturing of silver nanowires was among the list of prohibited items.

“The war is currently being fought with science,” he concludes. “The occupation forces do not want anyone to emerge … who can confront them with science.”

The situation is similarly bleak for scientists in Iraq, afflicted by unrest and anxiety since the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s. The subsequent harassment of scientific researchers, and restrictions imposed on importing materials for their work, prompted many to emigrate.

Nasser Al-Rawi began his career in a military manufacturing research centre, specialising in laser manufacturing. He tells SciDev.Net: “With the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war [in 1980], and the assassinations that accompanied it of scientists working in the Iraqi nuclear programme, the climate was not suitable for scientific research. So, I travelled to Libya, and worked there for five years, then moved to Malaysia.”

As such, Al-Rawi escaped the US-led Iraq war of 2003 and subsequent reign of terror by Islamic militants. He returned to Iraq earlier this year and is now head of the department of laser engineering and optoelectronics at Dijlah University in Baghdad.

However, one of his peers still lives with the memories of his experiences in the city of Mosul, when it was controlled by the Islamic State organisation, known as ISIS.

The researcher, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, says: “Things are somewhat calm now, but in the past this terrorist organisation targeted the educated in general, and scientific researchers in particular, and sought to obliterate everything related to science and learning, by occupying schools and universities and turning them into barracks.”

He adds: “Before this invasion, scientific research was already suffering, due to the mass migration of researchers and academics during the sanctions period in the 1990s, which was repeated on a larger scale during the period of the US-led invasion in 2003.

“We are now trying to recover and get rid of the painful memories of the recent past to save what can be saved.”

The targeting of researchers, past or present, is not surprising, according to Mazin Qumsiyeh, director and founder of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, Palestine.

Qumsiyeh tells SciDev.Net: “Science and education are among the most important components of development, and the goal of any conflicting forces, even if the conflict is civil, is to deprive the other party of this advantage, therefore scientific researchers will always be the victims of any conflict.”

He believes, however, that technology can help protect scientists, enabling them to communicate with each other and learn remotely in times of conflict.

Tensions at sea

In the Asia Pacific region, territorial disputes, rather than outright conflict, are leading to increasing risks for scientists.

The area of water known as the West Philippine Sea, the Philippine part of the disputed South China Sea, is a vital and urgent area for scientific research, but it is also entangled in geopolitical tensions, posing significant personal security risks for researchers working in the region.

The area, officially designated as part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, recognised by a 2016 arbitration ruling of the UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea, is located within the South China Sea, a semi-enclosed sea in the western Pacific Ocean.

The South China Sea itself is estimated to contain 190 trillion cubic feet (5.4 trillion cubic metres) of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of untapped oil, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Islands in the Sea are claimed variously by Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and China. However, China’s so-called “nine-dash line”, an imaginary line that covers islands and adjacent waters in the entire maritime area, essentially claims portions of the exclusive economic zones of the Southeast Asian countries.

Left unchallenged, China would have control not only of the natural resources but the entire maritime area. Between 2013 and 2015, China built artificial islands near the Philippines’ claimed areas.

On 28 September, the naval and air forces of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and the US conducted naval exercises, referred to as Maritime Cooperative Activity, in the West Philippine Sea, to highlight international cooperation in one of the world’s busiest maritime highways.

A few days before, the Armed Forces of the Philippines reported that the number of Chinese ships in one of the submerged ridges in the area, the Escoda shoal, had increased to a “record-high” 82, including 11 warships. It said Chinese research vessels were seen near the coastline of Palawan, an archipelagic westernmost province of the Philippines, rich in diverse flora and fauna.

According to Jonathan Anticamara, a biology professor at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, working in the West Philippine Sea is life-threatening. His group went to the Escoda shoal in June to conduct a survey to assess the status of corals.

“A Chinese coastguard boat tailed us, which in turn was followed by a large Chinese ship,” he tells SciDev.Net, adding that initially, they could not get into the water to do their work as the Chinese coastguard was trying to bump their boat.

Later, a Philippine coastguard boat blocked the Chinese coastguard’s boat, allowing Anticamara to slip into the water. However, the scientist says he and his team could not go as far as they needed, fearing they wouldn’t be protected by the Philippine coastguard in deeper waters.

“More Philippine coast guard vessels are needed to protect Filipino scientists doing their work in the area,” Anticamara urges.

According to the researcher, their survey focused on the shallow waters of the shoal, around ten metres deep, where fish species diversity is most concentrated. Beyond 12 metres, marine diversity significantly decreases.

Anticamara explains that he and his team decided to conduct the survey despite the risks, as currently there is no diversity report on the Escoda shoal. He believes a complete assessment in the West Philippine Sea is urgent as many marine species there are dying.

Earlier, in March this year, another group of Filipino scientists in Thitu island, also known as Pag-asa island, were harassed by a Chinese helicopter, according to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), an agency under the Philippine Department of Agriculture.

According to BFAR, the Chinese helicopter got as low as 50 feet (15 metres) from the surface, for about ten minutes, with some of the scientists sustaining minor injuries due to the strong wind and debris from the hovering chopper.

For some experts, diplomacy is the best option in the face of such threats.

At a symposium organised by the University of the Philippines Los Baños School of Environmental Science and Management in June, Ben Malayang III, emeritus professor at Silliman University, emphasised the urgent need for cooperation in protecting the shared environmental heritage of the West Philippine Sea.

Malayang explained that while territorial disputes often create “friend-foe” dynamics, these tensions can be mitigated through collaboration among regional stakeholders, focusing on the shared responsibility to preserve the region’s vital marine ecosystem.

Protecting scientists

Whether scientists choose to stay in their country, despite the risks they face, or need help to leave, international support is available.

UK-based charity Cara, the Council for At-Risk Academics, describes itself as a “rescue mission” for academics who need urgent help escaping discrimination, persecution, violence or conflict. It also works to support those who choose to stay in their home countries despite the dangers.

Science in Exile is a global initiative which also aims to help refugee scientists, through advocacy, support, networking and research activities.

There are several organisations which can support scientists in peril but “all of them are under-resourced” says Peter McGrath, coordinator of the InterAcademy Partnership, one of the partner organisations of Science in Exile.

He highlights the need for awareness “at the highest level” in order to establish effective support structures “before the next crisis happens”.

McGrath says risks to scientists have always been there, but in the current climate “there is always another crisis that we have to deal with”.

The ISC carries out diplomatic work and provides information for legal cases for members in danger. The majority of this work is not public, at the request of the scientists themselves, says Stavrou.

For Stavrou, the international science community has a responsibility to step up to help those at risk.

“It’s our community. We have an obligation to look at supporting, protecting and strengthening the resilience of the scientific community,” she says.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.