Monarch Butterfly Habitat Deforestation Grinds On, Despite Laws

[hatrack]

MEXICO CITY — A recent crackdown on illegal logging has not slowed deforestation threatening the winter refuge for monarch butterflies, according to a scientist who has been studying the insects for 50 years. In an effort to protect hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies that migrate to Mexico from the eastern United States and Canada each fall, police and environmental prosecutors in November closed down illegal sawmills, arrested 28 people, and confiscated illegally harvested lumber in central Mexico. "In my opinion the Mexican law enforcement effort to protect these butterflies is not effective," said Lincoln Brower, an ecologist who may be the foremost expert on the 3,000-mile (4,800-kilometer) monarch migration to Mexico.

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Brower said when he flew over legally protected butterfly areas this month, he saw working logging trucks, suggesting that illegal timbering continues to encroach on highland fir forests that are essential to the monarchs' survival. "You can go up in a 20-minute flight and see what's going on," he said. "It's obvious that there is massive deforestation on a grand scale. It is obvious from talking with local people that they are scared and angry because these (loggers) are analogous to the mafia in the way they treat the law and the land."

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The monarch butterflies return each year to carpet fir trees in Michoacan and neighboring Mexico state, an aesthetic and scientific wonder that attracts about 200,000 visitors annually. The butterflies represent a seasonal economic boon to the landowners, known as ejiditarios, who manage four main butterfly sanctuaries in the 56,000-hectare (138,380-acre) Monarch Butterfly Biosphere.

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During a four-month stay in Mexico, monarch butterflies remain susceptible to the wet and cold. Even small holes in a forest canopy can expose butterfly colonies, each containing millions of insects, to the fatal chill of a clear winter night, Brower said. "If the canopy is closed, it's like a blanket," Brower said. "It's really important that the forest be intact all the way down the valley.... It's a very limited system that the monarchs are capable of living in, as far as anybody knows."

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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-01-28/s_12477.asp

[brokensymmetry]

1. I remember when...

the Monarchs were so very numerous. They're rare now; I hardly see any. I suppose that I'll see their demise as a species.

And I, and the world, will be poorer for their loss.

[NickB79]

2. People have their priorities so ass-backwards

When early studies came out showing that monarch butterfly larvae died when fed pollen from genetically engineered corn, there were numerous protests against GM corn and GM companies for "killing the monarchs" (it later turned out that the studies subjected the larvae to far too high of pollen levels than they'd ever see in nature). But many of the people who protested then have sat idly by and watched as the last remaining forests the butterflies need to survive are wiped out. One of my college professors, who was strongly opposed to GM crops, cited the monarchs as a reason why GM crops were bad for the environment. I asked her what she thought of the continued deforestation of their winter homelands in Mexico, and she just blinked and looked blankly at me.

People really need to get their priorities straight.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. The examples you cite aren't exactly of

people having priorities assbackwards. People in the US can more easily protest what the US government is doing (i.e. allowing GM crops to be grown) than what the Mexican government is doing (not protecting Monarch habitat against deforestation.)

As for your professor, it seems that fighting GM foods was her priority issue, not saving the monarch butterfly, so her lack of knowledge about monarch habitat destruction isn't really surprising. People opposing GM foods were concerned about the research indicating that larvae die if fed on GM plants, but that probably didn't lead many to get involved in save the monarch activities.

My point is that we should be glad when people are involved in working for a cause and not condemn them because they aren't working on all the worthwhile causes that exist.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Monkey Wrenchers at Work in the Wrong Places

Monkey-wrenchers should have been driving their tree spikes into Monarch butterfly habitat.