Mexico Pushes Butterfly Protection Via Tourism
Monarch butterflies hang from a tree branch at the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico on November 25, 2007.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced a plan to pump pesos into the reserve to boost tourism. The site lies in an impoverished area where illegal logging threatens the monarch's fragile habitat.
Photograph by Miguel Tovar/AP
Jessica Bernstein-Wax in Cerro Prieto, Mexico
Associated Press
November 26, 2007
Mexico hopes to protect its monarch butterflies by boosting tourism and curbing illegal logging at a key refuge, the country's leader said Sunday.
President Felipe Calderón pledged 4.6 million U.S. dollars toward advertising and equipment for the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, which covers a 124,000-acre (50,000-hectare) swathe of trees and mountains that for thousands of years has served as the winter nesting ground to millions of orange-and-black-winged monarch butterflies.
Calderón said the plan would encourage tourism to an impoverished area where illegal logging has been rampant.
(Related Story: In the Midst of Monarchs: Mexico's Butterfly Oasis [June 10, 2003])
Protecting the Monarch
The new initiative is part of continuing efforts to protect the butterflies, which are a tourist attraction and a source of national pride.
While the monarch butterfly does not appear on any endangered species lists, experts say illegal logging in Mexico threatens its existence in North America because it removes the foliage that protects the delicate insects from the cold and rain.
"By even taking a single tree out near the butterfly colony, you allow heat to escape from the forest, and that then jeopardizes the butterflies," said Lincoln Brower, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida.
Brower, who has studied the insects for 52 years, described the Mexican nesting grounds as "the Mecca of the whole insect world."
The reserve already receives some 36.4 million U.S. dollars in government funding, and its staff includes a team of park rangers who patrol the area equipped with assault rifles and body armor, searching for armed gangs of lumber thieves.
The World Wildlife Fund and the Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation say the efforts are paying off. They say this year saw a 48 percent drop in illegal logging, compared to a year ago.
"We're gaining ground in the fight against illegal logging," Calderón said.
Migration
Each September the butterflies begin their journey from the forests of eastern Canada and parts of the United States to the central Mexican mountains. The voyage is considered an aesthetic and scientific wonder.
The butterflies return to the U.S. and Canada in late March, where they breed and cycle through up to five generations before heading back south.
Scientists say they are genetically programmed to return to Mexico, where they settle into the same mountains their ancestors inhabited the year before.
(Related story: Internal Clock Leads Monarch Butterflies to Mexico[June 10, 2003])
According to Brower, sometimes they even return to the exact same trees—probably because previous monarchs have marked the area through a mechanism scientists don't yet understand.
Omar Vidal, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Mexico program, applauded Calderón's plan.
"This is the longest migration of all insects, a unique phenomenon and a natural wonder, and Mexico has the biggest responsibility to protect them because they come here to hibernate," he said.
Brower said the monarch isn't at risk of extinction because it can be found in Mexico, Canada, the U.S., most of South America, and even parts of Australia and New Zealand. But disappearing habitat could threaten a delicate migratory route that has existed for an estimated 10,000 years.
"The whole migratory phenomenon, which involves two continents and over a million square miles [2.5 million square kilometers], could just go down the drain," he said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
