Tragic death of butterfly activists are reminder of dangers facing environmental defenders

by Greenpeace International

We mourn the loss of Homero Gómez and Raúl Hernández, defenders of the Monarch butterfly and their homes. We condemn the violence against the environmental activists in their own home and country. 
On the front lines of climate change, environmental activism is costing the protectors their lives.
In less than a week, two butterfly sanctuary workers in Mexico have been found dead. Raúl Hernández was found Saturday morning, only two days after the funeral of Homero Gómez, an activist found dead days earlier. These deaths are seen as part of a global pattern aimed at silencing activists.
Both men worked to protect monarch butterflies’ winter habitat in Mexico: Gómez opened and managed a butterfly sanctuary as part of a strategy to stop illegal logging in the area while Hernández worked as a butterfly tour guide [1].  Michoacan, home to both activists, is also home to the country’s largest monarch butterfly reserve.
Each year, millions of the orange and black insects make the 2000 mile (3220 km) journey from Canada to Mexico to winter in warmer weather. However, climate change linked to weather changes and an ever evolving habitat has brought new challenges.
The illegal logging industry, however, poses the biggest threat – to both the physical sanctuaries and to the world’s largest butterfly migration.
Activists, who have long spoken out against the illegal logging industry, eventually succeeded last year in reducing logging activity
around the butterfly sanctuaries in Michoacan but logging license corruption still plagues the area. The defense of the territory, natural resources and biodiversity has made activists victims of persecution, threats and cowardly acts, as evidenced by the taking of their lives.
Targeted killings are a grim reality for environmental activists globally. In Latin America, they happen weekly and recently, in Nicaragua, 6 Indigenous leaders were killed in a Biosphere raid
.
This cannot continue to be the case, and it’s time to acknowledge inequality of risk to risks of activists working across the world. Those on the front lines of environmentalism are responding to threats for our future, while managing very real threats in the present.
To the family, friends and fighting partners, we send our solidarity. We demand justice and peace for activists of all causes and we reiterate the urgency of having effective protection mechanisms for the defenders of the land.
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Statement from Greenpeace Mexico (Español)

1.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51356265?ocid=socialflow_twitter