Homero Gómez González was 50 years old, was in love with nature and gave his life for it.

The man, a well-known environmental activist who managed a monarch butterfly sanctuary,  disappeared on January 27 2020, after a meeting in the village of El Soldado. His body was found at the bottom of a well.

Homero Gómez González came from a family of lumberjacks in the state of Michoacán, and he himself has been a lumberjack for years.

But at some point in his life Gómez stopped cutting trees and decided to protect the habitat of monarch butterflies who come to Mexico in winter after traveling over 5,000 kilometers.

There he founded the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The family immediately reported the disappearance because Homero Gómez González had received threats from a criminal gang in the previous days.

Over two hundred volunteers undertook a search to bring him back home safely. Unfortunately, the Mexican activist was found dead and there were signs of violence on his body: he was deemed “uncomfortable”, as he had denounced criminal groups who wanted to destroy part of the monarch butterfly environment, threatening their survival.

Now the autopsy will determine cause of death, but sadly, it is a known fact that environmental activists in Mexico are subject to disappearances and violence.

Since 2006, 60,000 people have disappeared in Mexico, many of them activists who fought for the protection of nature.

On the 3rd of february the news of another dead activist emerged: his body was covered with wounds, one on the head caused by a sharp object.

The man was called Raul Hernandez Romero, he was 44 years old and was a tour guide in themonarch butterfly of Michoacán. There had been no news of him January the 27th.