Mexico: Second butterfly activist found dead

A second man working with Mexico's largest butterfly reserve has been found dead, according to media reports on Monday. Raul Hernandez Romero was a guide at the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southern Mexico.

Hernandez's family told the authorities that he hadn't been seen since January 27, when he left his home in the town of Angangueo, which is located inside the reserve. Police said they found his body late on Saturday, it has multiple bruises and what appeared to be a knife wound in his head.

The body was discovered in Ocampo, next door to Angangueo.

Days earlier, the body of Homero Gomez Gonzalez was found in the Ocampo area. He had suffered a head wound and then drowned in a pond.

Gonzalez, 50, was a prominent anti-logging activist, as the industry is highly disruptive to the 2,000-mile (3,220-km) migration route of the Monarch butterfly, which travels all the way from Canada to southern Mexico in the winter.

His brother has said that he last saw Gonzalez on January 13 at a community celebration, and he was in the company of Ocampo mayor, Roberto Arriaga Colín and several other local officials. It has been determined that robbery is likely not the motive behind Gonzalez's death, as $500 in cash was found on his body.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had described Gonazalez's death as "painful" and said he believed it could be tied to organized crime.

Logging, both legal and illegal, as well as tourism, farming, and mining are all active industries in the area of the reserve and threatening the well-being of the butterflies and the stability of their migration. There are also rival drug gangs active in the area, who regularly fight one another for the best smuggling routes.

es/ng (AP, Reuters)