Berta Cáceres was a courageous activist who helped expose the alarming number of people being killed and threatened simply for defending rights to their ancestral land.
She was shot dead in her home town in Honduras on 2nd March 2016.
This Annual Report is dedicated to her memory.
Global Witness’s research reveals that every week at least two people are being murdered for taking a stand against land grabbing and environmental destruction. Global Witness continues its campaign to stop this.
VISION, VALUES & UNIQUE WAY OF WORKING
Vision
We want a better world - where corruption is challenged and accountability prevails, all can thrive within the planet’s boundaries, and governments act in the public interest.
Mission
Many of the world’s worst environmental and human rights abuses are driven by the exploitation of natural resources and corruption in the global, political and economic system. Global Witness is campaigning to end this. We carry out hard-hitting investigations, expose the facts, and push for change. We are independent, not-for-profit, and work with partners around the world in our fight for justice.
Values
Courage and Tenacity for Justice.
Our unique way of working
The Global Witness team draws on a wide range of skills. From undercover investigations and painstaking financial research, to information gathering on the ground and close cooperation with partners and activists all over the world.
We use many techniques to gather evidence including interviews, secret filming, photography, document research and often just dogged physical presence – our investigators sometimes spend days counting logging trucks across borders and through checkpoints to monitor illegal timber trades.
Our reports are known for their meticulous attention to detail and are months and sometimes years in the making. Their release garners global attention and attracts headlines around the world.
But exposure is not enough: our goal has always been to achieve system-wide change that will starve corrupt dictators and warlords of looted funds, stop brutal resource-driven conflicts, and protect the planet’s natural resources for the equitable and sustainable benefit of all.
To achieve our goals, we use our hard-hitting reports and investigations to drive strategic advocacy by targeting decision-makers, campaigning to change laws, demanding accountability from political leaders and justice for perpetrators of crimes and human rights violations.
And we work in partnership with individuals and like-minded organisations across the world.
Together we will continue to expose the shadow systems that enable corruption and conflict, and lift the resource curse that condemns millions of people to lives of poverty and violence.
2015 IN NUMBERS
US$1.1bn: the amount of money that changed hands in a deal involving Shell and Eni, in exchange for one of Nigeria’s most lucrative oil blocks. In 2015 Global Witness showed the deal was corrupt and is pushing for accountability.
£122bn: the value of property in England and Wales owned offshore. Global Witness’s work led to the UK government announcing a crackdown on corrupt money in the property market.
US$42bn: the amount covered by the World Bank’s worldwide procurement policy which now includes a commitment to collect and publish company ownership information.
US$31bn: an estimate of the value of Myanmar’s previously hidden jade production.
25% : the proportion of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas living in Africa’s Virunga National Park. Global Witness helped protect Virunga from oil exploitation, although threats still remain.
2/3: the proportion of the world’s top 200 publicly listed oil, gas and mining companies covered by transparency laws. Global Witness has defended these laws from attack.
2+: the number of people being murdered every week defending their land and environment.
10,000: the number of hectares of land returned to local communities in Cambodia after pressure exerted by Global Witness and others.
5: The number of officials held accountable for logging and oil scandals in Liberia. Evidence gathered by Global Witness was crucial to obtaining convictions.
134km (squared) (area over twice the size of Kathmandu): the amount of forest, savannah and farms acquired by the palm oil company Golden Veroleum during the Ebola outbreak. Global Witness has put forward evidence to show how the company took advantage of the crisis and resulting civil society vacuum, to double the size of its plantation, something which the company denies.
4:1: the proportion of U.S. public companies failing to do the minimum required to stamp out conflict minerals from their supply chains.
40%: the proportion of timber stock a Central African Republic logging company couldn’t sell due to our exposure of their payments to rebels guilty of mass murder, kidnappings, rape and recruitment of child soldiers.
CORRUPTION AND MONEY-LAUNDERING
The ability to hide and spend stolen money overseas makes corruption and criminal activity on a large scale not just possible, but attractively easy.
The result: citizens in poor countries are kept poor, our precious environment is squandered by global greed and corruption, and crimes like stealing vast sums from state budgets, drug trafficking and terrorism are more difficult to stop.
Global Witness is campaigning to fix the system by taking on the banks willing to take the money and ensuring it is no longer possible for criminals to hide their identity and ill-gotten gains behind an anonymous company.
Photo: Bullet holes and blood on a car windscreen from an assassination of a police officer in Mexico. The killing was part of drug war violence involving the Sinaloa Cartel which HSBC admitted taking money from.
Credit: Erich Schlegel/Corbis
CORRUPTION AND MONEY-LAUNDERING: IMPACTS
Mystery on Baker Street: Pushing the UK to stop being a safe haven for the corrupt
Global Witness has repeatedly shown the insidious role that corporate secrecy and anonymous shell companies play in aiding widespread corruption, crime, environmental destruction and violence.
By propping up abusive regimes, keeping developing economies dependent on overseas aid, allowing criminals to evade sanctions and carry out their dubious activities undetected, anonymous companies threaten the safety, security and well-being of people around the world.
As well as being an offshore problem, this is an ‘onshore’ one too; the UK and U.S. are two of the biggest money-laundering hubs on the planet. In 2015, Global Witness investigated the extent to which the UK’s property market is providing a safe haven for corrupt officials and their assets.
Our team used a network of intelligence, anti-corruption databases, court documents, Interpol notices, social media sources, video interviews and real life interviews to create the first ever detailed picture of the true owners and controllers of some of the UK’s most expensive and prestigious properties.
Our painstaking work revealed a sector shrouded in secrecy. The vast majority of UK properties that appeared to present a money-laundering risk were owned via networks of anonymous companies, making the work of finding out the real owners extremely difficult.
Our 2015 report, ‘Mystery on Baker Street’ detailed one such case, and the story we had pieced together despite the secrecy involved.
It revealed how an unknown individual had acquired a network of offshore-owned companies which had amassed a £147m property empire on London’s Baker Street – the famous central London home of Sherlock Holmes.
We showed how this network could be linked to a former Kazakh secret police chief – Rakhat Aliyev –a man accused of murder, torture and money-laundering.
The companies and the people involved in this case all deny that Aliyev is or was ever the owner of the properties. But they’ve refused to identify that owner, citing reasons of confidentiality.
Photo: Credit: Blandine Le Cain, Flikr
Our exposé produced quick results. Just weeks after publication, UK Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to crack down on corrupt money in the property market.
During a major speech on corruption in Singapore, he said:
He explicitly cited the findings of our exposé as direct evidence for what was needed.
A global problem that requires a global solution
At least £122bn worth of property in England and Wales is owned by companies registered offshore, making it impossible for people to work out who the real owners are.
And the UK is not the only safe haven. The U.S., France, Australia and countless other countries around the world are allowing dirty money to buy access through mansions and other luxury goods.
Global Witness is working with the UK government to develop strong legislation to get to grips with the problem of corrupt money flowing through the property market. And globally, we will be pushing other countries to do the same.
But money laundering is only part of the story. In 2016, we will be pushing the UK to go further to stop the corrupt travelling freely to the UK and elsewhere.
Photo: UK Prime Minister, David Cameron. Credit: Number 10 / Flikr
OIL, GAS AND MINING
Properly managed, money derived from oil, gas and mining could build schools, hospitals and roads, dramatically reduce dependency on international aid and help to lift countries out of poverty.
But all too often, the money goes missing as deals are done behind closed doors, allowing small, corrupt elites to profit at the expense of ordinary citizens.
There has been progress. Over two-thirds of the world’s top 200 publicly listed extractive companies are now covered by transparency laws that Global Witness conceived of and campaigned for.
We continue our campaign for everyone - citizens, journalists, and government officials – to have access to information about natural resource deals.
Photo: Jade mine in Myanmar: The true scale of Myanmar’s jade trade has been a closely guarded secret. But in 2015 Global Witness revealed that jade production was worth up to US$31bn in 2014 alone –that’s equivalent to nearly half of Myanmar’s stated GDP. But the money isn’t reaching state coffers or local people. Instead it is empowering some of the country’s most dangerous opponents of reform.
Credit: Minzayar
OIL, GAS AND MINING: OUR IMPACTS
Myanmar’s Jade trade: revealing a secret US$31bn industry
Jade is one of the planet’s most precious gemstones. In China it has a cultural significance that bestows it an almost mythical status, with the highest quality stones fetching millions of dollars apiece. The world’s most valuable jade deposits are found in Myanmar’s war-torn Kachin State.
In 2013, reports came out indicating that Myanmar’s jade industry was worth far more than the US$3-US$4bn reported in official sales. With more than one in three people living in poverty in the country, this begged the question – where were these riches going?
At the start of what led to over a year of investigative work, we started asking questions in Kachin State, revealing widespread rumours of notorious figures controlling the jade business.
Digging further, we gathered information from over 400 public officials, major industry figures and associations, small-scale miners, smugglers and community groups. We were leaked previously unseen data including maps and official jade sales figures. And we worked with the Open Knowledge Foundation and OpenCorporates to analyse company records and substantiate connections between powerful figures and government-licensed jade companies.
We also drew on the talents of an incredibly talented local photographer, Minzayar Oo, who was able to bring out images from an area kept off-limits to foreigners, and on independent research by a local civil society organisation, the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG), into the devastating human impacts of the industry.
Our findings were explosive.
Jade: Myanmar’s “Big State Secret”, revealed how industrial scale exploitation of jade is emptying the Kachin State’s precious reserves at an incredible rate.
Our estimates put the value of official production in 2014 alone at up to US$31bn– an eye-watering figure equivalent to 48% of the country’s official GDP – and 46 times the amount spent by the government each year on health.
Our investigations revealed how the local community has been systematically squeezed out of the industry – and that the trade is controlled through networks of anonymous companies by a small handful of military families, U.S.-sanctioned drug lords and crony companies associated with the darkest days of junta rule.
This rush for jade has had a devastating impact on Kachin State and its people.
Hills once covered in forest have been transformed into a desolate moonscape dotted with water-filled craters, leaving the area prone to major flooding and pollution. Landslides caused by the reckless dumping of mining waste have become a regular occurrence, costing hundreds of lives. And the community is wrestling a drugs epidemic tied up with the jade industry, with countless jade miners in the grip of heroin addiction.
Our report launch in Myanmar sparked a media storm. Former dictator Than Shwe, and U.S.-sanctioned drug lord Wei Hsueh Kang were just two of the faces splashed across front pages as big money-makers from the shady industry. There were rumours of major jade tycoons convening an emergency summit to decide what to do.
The story was covered by a host of international outlets – the BBC, the New York Times, the Economist and TIME Magazine to name but a few. Bootleg report copies were printed locally, selling in the markets and streets, and the story spawned a dedicated Facebook page set up by local activists, ‘Save our Pharkant’, to push for change.
As one local activist explained,
Shining a light on the inner workings of the jade trade has turned it from a dirty secret into a matter of national and international debate.
This has created a platform for local voices to be heard, and opened up a crucial discourse on the changes needed, from an immediate halt on activity and an end to hidden ownership, to wholesale management reform and a locally-endorsed agreement on resource sharing.
As Myanmar emerges from decades of military dictatorship, and a new civilian-led government takes power, the need to turn the jade industry from a slush fund for a corrupt elite, into a force for public good is firmly on the agenda.
Picture of mother holding picture.
The colossal vehicles used by jade companies pose a daily threat to those living and working in Hpakant, Kachin State. Here, a mother holds the picture of her late son, killed in an accident while searching for jade in a company waste pile.
Credit: Minzayar
Film poster picture (desktop only)
The jade business is a fundamental part of life in Kachin State. The hero of this Kachin film (in English titled: ‘The Jade Boy and the High Class Girl’) is a young jade miner who risks the perils of police and landslides to make his living from the stone.
Credit: Global Witness
OIL, GAS AND MINING: OUR IMPACTS
Virunga National Park: Protecting Africa’s oldest and most biodiverse park from oil exploitation
For the past three years, Global Witness has been driving a major international campaign to protect Virunga - Africa’s oldest national park and a designated World Heritage site.
Virunga is one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet. It boasts savannah, rainforest, active and dormant volcanoes and one of Africa’s great lakes. It is also home to around a quarter of the world’s critically endangered mountain gorillas, as well as other endangered species like elephants and hippos. 200,000 people depend on Lake Edward, which is at the heart of Virunga’s ecosystem, for their livelihood and food.
As the easier-to-tap oil supplies in more traditional oil-producing regions of Africa have dwindled, more and more companies have shown a willingness to push into uncharted and remote areas.
So when the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo declared that parts of Virunga had been divided into oil blocks, international oil companies did not take long to react.
Two European companies – the French Total and the London-listed Soco International– secured rights to explore for oil in areas that overlapped Virunga, something which quickly led to an international outcry.
But while Total responded to calls to protect Virunga by promising to refrain from any oil activities within the current boundaries of the park, Soco pushed on in its search for oil.
Divestment and withdrawal
Since 2012, when Global Witness published previously unseen permits appearing to give Soco the green light to explore for oil in Virunga, we have been campaigning to prevent them from doing so, and hold them to account for their activities in the park.
Our Congo team has travelled to Virunga, met with the Head of the National Park and spoken to numerous sources. We’ve also worked closely with Congolese NGOs and the makers of the Oscar-nominated ‘Virunga’ film to expose the dark underbelly of Soco’s business model: a pattern of bribery and allegations of intimidation and violence against anti-oil activists.
Soco has sought to threaten those who have written about its activities in eastern Congo with legal action. The company says that it “does not condone, partake in or tolerate corrupt or illegal activity whatsoever”.
But the strength of our investigative work and exposés succeeded in keeping the spotlight on Soco’s activities both in Congo and internationally. And in 2015, this has led to some major breakthroughs.
In July, the Church of England announced that it was fully divesting from Soco after the company failed to satisfy the Church with its response to evidence of human rights abuses, bribery and corruption linked to its operations in Virunga. This removed £3m from the company’s balance sheet. The Church also issued a strong statement calling for an independent inquiry into Soco’s Virunga operations and demanded a commitment to permanently end its operations in the Park.
On the day of Soco’s 2015 AGM, we published explosive leaked material we had obtained from a key source. Cheques showing Soco had paid tens of thousands of dollars to a Congolese military officer accused of bribery and of brutally silencing opponents of oil exploration in the park, proved beyond doubt that Soco had paid bribes, as Global Witness had alleged all along.
The story was picked up by two TV nightly news programmes in the UK, the New York Times, Le Monde and numerous outlets in Africa.
The resulting media storm led to the Congolese Environment Minister saying, just two days after our exposé, that he is “not in favour” of drilling for oil inside the park. Major investors also called for the Chairman of Soco to resign.
A few months later Soco abandoned its claims to the Virunga block.
Global Witness is calling on the UK’s Serious Fraud Office to launch an investigation into the allegations of bribery, to determine whether Soco has acted illegally.
A new threat from Uganda
At the time of going to print, Virunga is facing a new threat. While our campaign has prevented any companies from bidding in the current licencing round, the Ugandan government is still intent on granting an oil licence in Lake Edward at the heart of the Virunga ecosystem.
Global Witness continues to work with other organisations to fight this threat and save this beautiful and precious park.
Pictures:
A mountain gorilla seen in the jungles of eastern Congo in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2009. Virunga is home to around a quarter of the world’s critically endangered mountain gorillas. Global Witness’s work has helped protect the park from oil exploitation.
Credit: Paul Taggart/Corbis
(Desktop only) Young boy in Munigi village, North Kivu. 200,000 people depend on Lake Edward, which is at the heart of Virunga’s ecosystem, for their livelihood and food.
Credit: Orlando Von Einsiedel for Virunga Movie
FORESTS, LAND AND CLIMATE
Soaring demand for food, fuel and other commodities is cranking up pressure on the environment, land, forests and communities worldwide.
Regulation governing how land is bought and sold is largely non-existent. As a result, human rights abuses are on the rise as secretive deals force indigenous communities on to the front lines of the increased competition over natural resources.
Global Witness works with groups and leaders in the Amazon, Congo and Asia. We’re campaigning alongside them to make sure their voices are heard, that they have full control over the use of their land, and that their human rights are protected.
In 2016 we’re significantly scaling up our efforts on our climate campaign – exposing instances of fossil fuel companies having an undue influence on government decisions, and campaigning for countries around the world to take the required action to make a fast and fair transition to a low carbon future.
Photo: Aerial view of Prey Long forest canopy in Cambodia
Credit: Global Witness
FORESTS, LAND AND CLIMATE: OUR IMPACT
Defending the defenders: exposing a hidden crisis and a rising death toll
Over our 23 year history, Global Witness has worked with and seen countless communities, NGO workers, individuals and journalists intimidated, beaten up and sometimes killed over disputes about how land and forests are used and managed.
In 2012, Global Witness’s friend and partner Chut Wutty was murdered by military police while showing journalists an illegal logging site. Wutty had spent years exposing how Cambodia’s political and business elite have accumulated vast fortunes by selling off the country’s land and forests.
In response to Wutty’s death, we put together the first ever picture of the situation for environmental and land defenders across the globe – an analysis we now do annually.
This work revealed a hidden crisis: a rising trend of death, intimidation and human rights abuse.
Our 2015 report confirmed this rising trend. Every week at least two people are being killed for taking a stand against land grabbing and environmental destruction. In 2014 alone, at least 116 environmental activists were documented as murdered for their opposition to these practices, and many were from indigenous communities. Most are dying amid disputes over hydropower, mining and agri-business.
Global Witness’s exposure of this crisis is leading to concerted international attention on this issue. And influential bodies like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council are using our data to inform their policies and practice.
In Peru, our exposé of the killing of Edwin Chota and indigenous leaders in the Amazon put pressure on the government to better protect environmental defenders. Chota’s community now have official land titles – crucial to their struggle against illegal logging.
Pictures:
Chut Wutty was a long standing friend and former employee of Global Witness. On April 26th 2012, he was murdered by members of Cambodia's military police whilst tracking illegal logging.
Credit: Global Witness
(Desktop only) Honduran police have been involved in intimidation, threats and suspected killings of environmental and land defenders. Global Witness’s research shows Honduras is the world’s most dangerous country per capita to be an environmental or land defender, with at least 109 people killed between 2010 and 2015.
Credit: SeanSutton/Panos
Berta Cáceres’ story
This report is dedicated to the memory of Berta Cáceres, a courageous Honduran activist who was murdered amid a conflict over a dam set to destroy her community’s water source and agricultural land. Two international development banks, the Dutch FMO and the Finnish FinnFund were the main investors in the project.
In 2015, Global Witness travelled to Honduras as part of our ongoing investigations into defenders around the globe. It was then we met her and heard her story.
Berta Cáceres was an indigenous Lenca woman who had received frequent death threats for her work as the General Coordinator of COPINH (Civic Council of Popular Indigenous Organisations of Honduras), a non-profit organisation fighting for more than 20 years for indigenous rights in Honduras.
Since 2011, COPINH had been campaigning for its community to be consulted over plans to build the Agua Zarca dam, a project that looked set to force them off their ancestral land.
Over that time, several members of Cáceres’ organisation had been murdered, harassed and been subject to death threats.
Cáceres herself had been forced to live a fugitive existence. Criminalised by the Honduran government in collusion with corporate interests, she and her family had been subject to threats of sexual violence, kidnapping and death.
When construction on the Agua Zarca dam project restarted in late 2015, the threats against her escalated. She was shot dead by gunmen in the late hours of 2nd March 2016.
At the time of going to print Cáceres’ death has caused an international outcry. Alongside more than 50 other organisations, Global Witness is demanding an independent international investigation into the circumstances behind it, and guaranteed protection for her family and colleagues.
Our campaign won’t stop until land and environmental defenders are able to live and work without fear or intimidation.
Pictures:
Berta Cáceres, Credit: Global Witness
(Desktop only) Site of the Agua Zarca dam project. Since 2011, Berta Cáceres and her organisation COPINH had been campaigning for its community to be consulted over plans to build the Agua Zarca dam, a project that looked set to force them off their ancestral land.
Credit: Giles Clarke/Getty Images Reportage
MINERALS AND CONFLICT
Global Witness was the first organisation to draw the world’s attention to the issue of so-called ‘blood diamonds’ – diamonds that were sourced and traded in ways that are driving violent conflict.
The trade in minerals such as gold, tungsten and jade has funded some of the world’s most brutal conflicts for decades. These resources can enter global supply chains, ending up in our mobile phones, laptops, jewellery and other products, making it very difficult for consumers to know if their favourite products fund violence overseas.
Over our 23 year history, we have pioneered global campaigns to break the links between minerals and conflict.
We want companies to take responsibility for the people who work at every stage of their supply chains so that minerals can help support development in some of the world’s poorest and most fragile nations in the world.
Mining in the Congo: Meeting the men and women working in Congo’s mines
Working with Congolese civil society, Global Witness travelled to remote parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu Province – an area rich in mineral deposits.
We wanted to speak to the people working at the very start of the supply chain for tin, tantalum and tungsten – minerals used in familiar and everyday objects like mobile phones and cars.
Here are some of their stories: (more can be found on the Global Witness website)
A tin digger
International and domestic supply chain reforms are helping some, but many diggers and their families still face daily challenges linked to armed looting of minerals.
A tin digger who asked to remain anonymous describes an attack he lived through at a tin mine, Mwenga territory in March 2015:
Espoir
Efforts to change the way that eastern Congo’s supply chains work have begun to create opportunities for reform, but have also been accompanied by problems.
A combination of a six-month mining ban by the Congolese President in 2010, improper interpretation of the new supply chain laws and standards by some industry groups and a slump in market confidence badly affected some tin, tantalum and tungsten mining communities.
Although official mineral exports are increasing again, some companies irresponsibly chose to avoid sourcing minerals from eastern Congo, which has cost some artisanal diggers their jobs.
Espoir, a digger at a tin and tungsten mine in Walungu territory, said:
Noella and Romance
Increased international scrutiny has helped to create opportunities for some in local civil society to improve working conditions at mine sites.
Noella and Romance from a women’s committee based in Mwenga territory have worked since 2011 to improve conditions for women employed on the outskirts of coltan and tin mines:
Pictures:
Tin digger who asked to remain anonymous
(Desktop only) Espoir
(Desktop only) Noella and Romance
THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS
Global Witness relies on the generosity of our supporters. Your help allows us to continue our campaigns to prevent conflict, corruption, human rights abuses and environmental destruction around the world.
All our donors have one thing in common: they share our vision of a better world - where corruption in the global, political and economic systems is challenged and accountability prevails, where people’s rights to land and livelihood are protected, where governments act in the public rather than the private interest, and where the environment on which we all depend is protected.
We are indebted to everyone who has given their time, assistance and advice throughout 2015.
In 2011 The Open Society Foundations (OSF) pledged a Challenge Grant of £4.5m (US$6.6 million) to Global Witness to ensure our long term sustainability, but only if we matched it by raising twice that amount from new donors by the end of 2016.
Everyone who has generously given a direct financial donation in 2015 has helped take us one step closer to reaching this goal. We now expect to meet it in the first few months of 2016, nine months before the deadline.
This income has helped develop and strengthen our organisation - allowing us to continue our hard-hitting investigations, exposés and campaigns for change.
We have ambitious plans for 2016 and beyond and we would truly appreciate any support you can offer in helping us achieve our goals.
Advisory Board
Bennett Freeman (Chair), Misha Glenny, Arlene McCarthy, Christopher Mitchell, Aryeh Neier (Honorary Chair), Silas Siakor, Alexander Soros, Darian Swig, Mabel van Oranje, Edward Zwick
Trustees of Global Witness Trust (UK)
Jeremy Bristow, Caroline Digby, Lorna Mackinnon, Christopher Mitchell (Chair), Tony Stevenson
Directors of Global Witness Foundation (U.S.)
Patrick Alley (President), Stafford Matthews, Bennett Freeman
Board of Directors
Jan – Nov 2015: Patrick Alley, Charmian Gooch & Simon Taylor
Dec 2015-Present: Patrick Alley, Charmian Gooch, Samuel Nguiffo, Stephen Peel, Mark Stephens CBE (Chair), Simon Taylor
Volunteers and pro bono supporters
We extend our deepest thanks to all our volunteers who provide research and campaigning support on a daily basis and to all those who support us with pro-bono legal advice. With special thanks to Advocates for International Development (A4ID) and Simmons &Simmons.
DONORS
Individuals
Aaron Clements-Partridge, Adam Corlett, Angus Brown, Anne Travers, Anthony Cowan, Benjamin Rutledge, Brian Massimino, Charles Ward, Dan Walsh, Danielle van Oijen, Darian W. Swig, Dominika Arseniuk, Douglas Bender, Edith Brown Weiss, Eliza Ladd Schwarz, Gary Mortimer, Glenn Hurowitz, Hitoshi Yamauchi, Isabel Bigelow, Izhar Patkin, Jim Bennett, John Jones, Jonathan Fox, Kai Kuhnhenn, Keirnan Fowler, Ken Grossinger, Kimberley Hikaka, Laura and John Arnold, Laura Einstein and Helene Madonick, Lawrence Simanowitz, Leslie Nuchow & Emily Hartzell, Loren McArthur, Lydia Lau, Lynn Taliento, Mark Shaffer, Mary L. Beebe, Miriam Miller, Mmu Cheng, Musa Okwonga, Natalie Foster & Matt Ewing, Nicola Hodges, Richard Stebles, Robin Mize, Robert Sprocket, Roger Manser, Roshanak Ameli-Tehrani, Sally Girvin & Nina Schwalbe, Shalni Arora, Sherry Hall, Stephen & Yana Peel, Steve Lustgarden, Timothy Phillips, Tina Yee-wan Pang, Vicky Bowman, Will Snell
Trusts, Foundations, Government Donors,NGOs and Multilaterals
Adessium Foundation, Arcus Foundation, Bread for the World - Protestant Development Service, Brook Foundation, Center for International Policy, Democratic Governance Facility, Don Quixote Foundation, Empowers Africa, Environmental Investigation Agency, Evan Cornish Foundation, Ford Foundation, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, Humanity United, Irish Aid, JMG Foundation, John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation, Jocarno Fund, Keller Family Fund, National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), Omidyar Network, Pro Victimis Foundation, Samworth Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Sundance Institute, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Synchronicity Earth, The Alexander Soros Foundation, The David and Elaine Potter Foundation, The Foundation to Promote Open Society, The Foundation to Promote Open Society - Challenge Fund, The Highbury Foundation and the Allard Prize for International Integrity, The Jerome L. Greene Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Taylour Foundation, The TED Prize, The University of Wolverhampton– Strengthening African Forest Governance Contract, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Trellis Charitable Fund, Trócaire, UK Department for International Development (DFID), Wallace Global Fund, World Resources Institute
Our 2015 reports
Jade: Myanmar's "Big State Secret"
The biggest natural resources heist in modern history?
Lords of Jade
How Southeast Asia’s biggest drug lord used shell companies to become a jade kingpin.
Turning the Tide
Building a clean oil sector through South Sudan's Peace Agreement.
How to lose £4bn
Credibility test for global transparency standard as £4bn lost to anonymous oil and mining companies.
The New Snake Oil?
The violence, threats, and false promises driving rapid palm oil expansion in Liberia.
Mystery on Baker Street
Brutal Kazakh official linked to £147m London property empire.
Blood Timber
How Europe played a significant role in funding war in the Central African Republic.
Banks and Dirty Money
How the financial system enables state looting at a devastating human cost.
Exporting Impunity
Our exposé warns that EU and US company executives could face jail terms for illegally importing Congolese timber.
Digging for Transparency
How U.S. companies are only scratching the surface of conflict minerals reporting.
How Many More?
Report shows killings of environmental activists are increasing, with indigenous communities hardest hit. We shine a spotlight on Honduras - the most dangerous country to be an environmental defender.
Guns, Cronies and Crops
Global Witness exposé: how Myanmar’s business, political and military cronies conspired to grab farmers’ land, leaving communities struggling to survive.
The Cost of Luxury
The Chinese craze for antique-style furniture has given rise to a multi-million dollar timber smuggling operation in Cambodia, and is driving rare trees to extinction.
Two World's Collide
How construction in Japan is driving destruction in Malaysia's last rainforests. Will Japan change its ways ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?
Download Report
Download a pdf version of the 2015 Annual Report here (3.14MB)
Front cover image: Peter Wood