• Samir Flores: They kill an activist in Mexico one day after denouncing the environmental impact of a thermoelectric plant

Mexican environmentalist Homero Gómez González, defender of the monarch butterfly and disappeared since last January 14, was found dead after being killed, the Michoacán State Prosecutor’s Office reported in western Mexico on Wednesday.

The lifeless body of the monarch butterfly protector was found in a water well in the municipality of Ocampo and transferred to the Forensic Medical Service for a legal autopsy, according to the same source.

The environmentalist's family informed the authorities of his disappearance since January 14 and also made public threats against him by alleged criminals engaged in illegal logging .

Gómez González administered a monarch butterfly sanctuary in the municipality of Ocampo, in Michoacán, an area known for the activity of groups dedicated to clandestine logging of the region's forests.

This sanctuary had been opened just last November as part of the environmentalist's activities to combat illegal logging of trees in that area, which is vital for the monarch butterfly.

The activist was an agronomist from the University of Chapingo, in the central state of Mexico, specializing in phototechnics, local media reported.

Gómez González's case is the murder of a more recent environmentalist in Mexico after last August the Mexican biologist and ecologist Nora López , responsible for the red macaw breeding project in the southeast of the country, was shot dead .

In June 2018, the environmentalist José Luis Álvarez Flores, defender of the sanctuary of the Saraguato monkey, was killed in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco.

In 2018, 14 environmental defenders were killed in Mexico , of which eleven were indigenous, according to the Mexican Network of Forest Farmers Organizations (MOCAF).

However, the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) states that in 2018 there were 49 attacks on environmentalists, of which 16 were homicides, totaling 21 victims.

According to official figures in Mexico, there are 120 environmentalists killed in the last 15 years.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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