Joannah Stutchbury had “tree sap running through her veins”. She was a tree lover, permaculture practitioner and a “full-on environmentalist” and conservationist.
“She had an ardent and unwavering passion for the planet and was wonderfully bonkers,” wrote Tracy West, the chief executive of Word Forest, in a new Global Witness report.
In July 2021, the 67-year-old, who had received multiple death threats, was shot dead as she returned to her home on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya.
Her name is among the 200 land and environmental defenders which Global Witness, an environmental and human rights watchdog, has recorded who were murdered in 2021.
For several years, Stutchbury had spoken out “with passion and determination” against land-grabbers and well-known private developers who had begun destroying the Kiambu forest nearby, said West.
In 2018, she made headlines when she single-handedly confronted them. “In the months before she was killed, she had rightfully won a legal case against a developer wanting to build on the forested land.”
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