Highlights Support of environmental defenders requires better understanding of environmental conflicts. Environmental defenders employ largely non-violent protest forms. Indigenous environmental defenders face significantly higher rates of violence. Combining preventive mobilization, tactical diversity and litigation increases activists’ success. Global grassroots environmentalism is a promising force for sustainability.

1 Latouche (2015) comments on the understanding of the phrase 'decolonization of the imaginary' referencing the [philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis and his book The Imaginary Institution of the Society (1975) where a social reality is described as 'imaginary significations' meaning representations which mobilise feelings. In a social reality, therefore, in which (economic) growth has a strong imaginary signification, degrowth can only be realised once a growth-oriented imaginary is decolonized.

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