A Rare Conviction For The Slaying Of A Latin American Environmentalist

"Four men have been found guilty in Costa Rica for the killing of a sea turtle conservationist in 2013. The chief of a three-judge panel said the slaying of Jairo Mora Sandoval, who worked for a green group called Widecast, was tied to his activism in a war “between poachers and environmentalists on the beach.”

In another development in Honduras, the government freed the only eyewitness to the murder of an internationally known environmentalist after holding him for nearly a month.

Those events last week in Latin America, one of the world’s deadliest regions for activists fighting projects such as dams and logging, were greeted as positive by international conservationist groups that are unaccustomed to good news. The reports came as relatives of Berta Cáceres Flores, who was killed early on March 3 in Honduras by gunmen who barged into her home and shot her in bed, traveled to Washington to speak with members of Congress."

Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post April 5, 2016.