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land and environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines from 2012 to 2021,
accounting to almost half of the injustices in the world along with Brazil and Colombia.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6f0e0b2d72f886aac5a5c8d43329331188aa80d51f22bccd885e31e5a3e3724e/letters-of-grief.jpg)
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November 15, 2010
Leonard Co (botanist), Sofronio Cortez (forest guard), and Julius Borromeo (forest guide) were murdered by the army on the roots of a Tanguile tree as they were conducting botanical research for the conservation of the rainforests in Leyte, Philippines.
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Linnaea Co, named after a twinflower (Linnaea borealis) is the bereaved and sole daughter of slain botanist Leonard Co. She continues to process her grief since the muder of her father
when she was just 8-years old.
She homes a tree nursery in honour of her father’s botanical legacy, planting wildlings across reforestation sites where her father used to bring her.
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how many more flowers?
how many more years?
how many more in this thirst for justice?
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Teresita Borromeo, 56, the widow of slain forest guide Julius Borromeo, revisits the roots of where her husband was murdered in Kananga, Leyte.
She works as a farmer to provide for her five bereaved children as a single mother in a decade’s worth in search for justice.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7c0229ace49d8f7d569ea702453de7a0238d7ce502b1683be248111671383ba4/Leonard-Co-slide-new.png)
‘A tree is born, a tree dies, the forest lives forever’
—Leonard L. Co
‘A tree is born, a tree dies, the forest lives forever’
—Leonard L. Co