Environmental defenders and civil society groups around the world are facing increasingly complex pressures, from surveillance and online intimidation to burnout, grief, isolation, and shrinking civic space.
These challenges rarely exist in isolation. Digital threats can carry emotional and psychological impacts, while chronic stress and intimidation can affect decision-making, relationships, and the long-term sustainability of movements.
Many of these realities surfaced during the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) Annual Meeting, held in Bangkok this April.
Founded in 1989, ELAW is a global network of public interest lawyers, scientists, and advocates working to advance environmental justice and support communities protecting people and planet. The alliance connects advocates across 88 countries and helps strengthen collaboration, solidarity, and practical support across movements.
The 2026 ELAW Annual Meeting brought together environmental lawyers, scientists, and civil society leaders from across Asia-Pacific, Africa, Europe, North America, and Latin America to exchange knowledge, share strategies, and discuss the growing pressures facing movements globally.
As part of our collaboration with ELAW, Open Briefing was invited to provide holistic support throughout the gathering. Representing Open Briefing at the gathering were Myo Minh Oo, a digital risk and resilience consultant, and Khine Myint Oo (Agnes), a wellbeing and collective care consultant, who delivered digital and information security and wellbeing support throughout the conference. The gathering highlighted the increasingly interconnected digital, emotional, and security pressures facing environmental defenders today.
ELAW said the partnership helped strengthen the support available to environmental advocates throughout the gathering:
“Open Briefing’s in-person support for environmental advocates during the ELAW Annual Meeting was critical in providing much needed resources and skills to advocates who operate daily in complex and challenging environments. ELAW’s Defenders Team works closely with Open Briefing on a regular basis, and we value the expertise they bring in support of our partners as they navigate escalating risks while advancing environmental justice.”
“People were sharing lived experiences and security concerns from the field”
Across plenary sessions, workshops, and informal discussions, participants explored issues including climate litigation, biodiversity protection, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, environmental governance, and shrinking civic space.
For Myo, one of the most striking aspects of the gathering was how grounded and practical the discussions felt.
“People were not only there to discuss environmental law in theory,” he reflected. “They were sharing lived experiences and legal tactics and campaign challenges and security concerns from the field.”
During the event, Open Briefing delivered a plenary session introducing holistic security approaches, facilitated a joint digital and information security and wellbeing helpdesk, hosted a group wellbeing session, and provided more than 12 one-to-one consultations. The team also received follow-up referrals and requests for ongoing support from 16 organisations and defenders following the gathering.
Many of the conversations centred around online harassment, digital surveillance concerns, account security, organisational preparedness, burnout, and intimidation linked to advocacy work.
Ashley Fowler, Open Briefing’s director of digital risk and resilience, noted that digital threats are often deeply connected to wider emotional and organisational pressures.
“Even if someone is not being technically surveilled, the fear that they are can drastically change the way they move through the world and the way they do their work,” she said.
Participants also raised practical concerns around platform trust, safer communications, organisational security practices, and the implications of emerging technologies such as AI.
Why wellbeing and security support go hand in hand
Alongside digital security support, there was significant demand for wellbeing support throughout the gathering.
This reflects a broader reality across many movements and civil society spaces: security cannot be understood purely in technical or physical terms. The emotional impacts of threats, harassment, displacement, overwork, surveillance, and prolonged stress can profoundly affect both individuals and organisations.
Nyachomba Kariuki-Schofield, Open Briefing’s associate director of wellbeing and collective care, believes this is one reason wellbeing support is too often treated as secondary within movement spaces.
“Wellbeing support can often feel like an add-on, rather than something essential,” she said. “But if someone is constantly in fight-or-flight mode, they cannot make the decisions they need to protect themselves or continue their work sustainably.”
Open Briefing’s integrated approach recognises that digital, physical, emotional, and collective wellbeing are deeply interconnected. A digital incident, for example, may also trigger fear, anxiety, exhaustion, isolation, or concern for family members and colleagues.
Drawing on conversations throughout the gathering, Agnes saw first-hand how closely environmental advocacy and wellbeing are connected.
“Providing wellbeing support for those who are taking care of our environment is such a meaningful opportunity”, says Agnes. “But every passion has a cost. Environmentalists who bring expertise and enthusiasm to protect the planet earth cannot avoid the psychological toll which comes along with that work”, she says.
These experiences reflect wider trends ELAW is seeing across its international network of environmental advocates and public interest lawyers.
“Through our Defenders work, we experience a need to expand the digital security and psychosocial resources available to our lawyer partners and the communities they work with. Increasingly complex digital security and information challenges threaten their ability to safely collaborate, and manage sensitive data. Many pressures and challenges threaten their resilience, and we see defenders who suffer from chronic burnout, fatigue, and trauma exposure.
Open Briefing’s partnership gives ELAW the ability to meet the holistic security needs for partners that are working regularly at the frontlines of the global environment movement. Trust is foundational to ELAW’s work, and the ability to have Open Briefing in-person at the Annual Meeting helped us facilitate access to physical, digital, and psychosocial resources for the advocates in our global community of practice.”
Nyachomba also highlighted the importance of thinking beyond purely individual models of support.
“Activists are rarely working alone,” she said. “They are part of collectives, movements, and communities. So wellbeing support also has to think beyond the individual and support how people care for each other collectively.”
Building trust through embedded support
Open Briefing supports defenders, organisations, and movements in a range of ways, from long-term remote accompaniment to in-person mentoring, workshops, and advisory support. Over the past three years, we have worked alongside partners navigating risk and repression across 100 countries.
Gatherings such as the ELAW Annual Meeting provide another valuable opportunity to embed that support within existing movement spaces, creating time for relationship-building, informal conversations, and peer exchange alongside more structured sessions.
“Being physically present is really powerful,” said Myo. “In these gatherings, even during a break, someone might come and say, ‘I saw your session – can I ask you something?’”
These moments can create lower-barrier opportunities for defenders and organisations to raise concerns, ask practical questions, explore support options, or seek guidance on issues they may not otherwise have brought forward.
The gathering also reflected the importance of locally grounded and context-aware support. Both Myo and Agnes have experience working with communities across the region, and bring not only professional expertise, but also deep awareness of the social, political, and cultural contexts shaping the realities many defenders are navigating.
Supporting movements to continue their work safely and sustainably
Despite the challenges discussed throughout the gathering, conversations also reflected the courage, solidarity, and determination of movements and defenders continuing their work under increasingly difficult conditions.
“What gives me hope is the level of courage and solidarity among defenders,” said Myo. “There are people who stand up for what is right, despite the challenges they face.”
As pressures on civil society and environmental defenders continue to evolve globally, many organisations and movements are increasingly recognising that wellbeing, resilience, digital security, and collective care are foundational to sustaining advocacy and movement work over time.
Open Briefing provides holistic security support to activists, journalists, defenders, organisations, and movements at risk worldwide, combining safety and security, digital and information security, and wellbeing and collective care support tailored to the realities people are facing.
Access further support
Open Briefing provides fully-funded assistance to activists and organisations facing threats related to their work. You can request support through our responsive assistance mechanism.