Mexican environmentalists warn about the monarch butterfly
Copyright 2000 Deutsche Presse-Agentur
October 7, 2000
By Klaus Blume, dpa
Mexico City - The monarch butterfly, whose natural habitat is North America, is a genuine traveller.
Every year in late summer the butterfly with the scientific name "Danaus plexippus" starts leaving the Great Lakes region along the U.S.-Canadian border and heads for its winter quarters - several thousand kilometres to the south, in central Mexico.
There, when the March sunshine begins to warm up the forests again, the butterfly starts heading back north.
Since the monarch makes its habitat in all three countries of the United States, Canada and Mexico, it even comprises the logo of their North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA).
But the orange-and-black insect is in danger in the southernmost of these countries.
Mexican environmentalists as well as the international environment lobby group Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) are alarmed because the forests in the state of Michoacan where the butterflies spend the winter are increasingly falling victim to the timber industry.
According to one of its most recent studies, the WWF says that the forests shrunk by 44 per cent between 1971 and 1999.
Initially, there had been worries that genetically-engineered maize might be a danger to the monarch.
However, just recently, international experts reported that studies had shown that the pollen from this genetically-altered "Bt- maize" had not, at least in the southern parts of the United States, been shown to have reduced the butterfly's numbers.
But it is the destruction of the butterflies' winter quarters in the forests which is what Mexican environmentalists are taking more seriously. One of the most ardent protectors of the monarch butterfly is Homero Aridjis, a novelist born in Michoacan and now president of the international PEN club.
And it was in response to an initiative of the environmental organisation "Group of 100" which he leads that the Mexican government already as early as 1986 put five monarch butterfly nesting areas under natural protection laws. But this didn't stop the cutting down of trees in many places.
"The lumber industry and mafia groups are illegally dealing in wood," Aridjis says, "and many local politicians are involved."
But there are also demographic problems, since the poor rural population is increasing strongly.
"Everybody wants to live from cutting timber, but the forest cannot recover so quickly," the writer points out.
He notes that the monarch needs the special microclimatic conditions which the forests of Michoacan offer, being situated some 3,000 metres above sea level and characterised by sunny days and cold nights.
In bad weather, the monarchs can be seen hanging by the millions to the coniferous Oyameles trees, while when it is sunny, they fly about, looking like colourful autumn leaves in the wind.
"They would not find the same natural and climatic conditions anywhere else like they do here," Aridjis said.
What still is a puzzle for scientists is where the butterflies get the orientation which always leads them back to the same destination. One guess is that magnetic fields play a role.
It is in their winter quarters in Mexico that the butterflies mate, but in such southern U.S. states as Texas and Louisiana that the eggs are laid.
The parents then die, before the new butterflies emerge from their eggs and continue the journey northwards to Canada. There, these butterflies mate, lay eggs and die.
So it is then the third generation, born in the northern United States or Canada, which in the autumn makes the journey southwards to Mexico, never having been there before.
Aridjis and his cohorts are demanding that the Mexican government enforce even stricter protection of the forests and truly apply the nature preservation laws. Also, farmers must be provided alternatives to cutting down trees.
Tourism could play an important role in this. Each weekend in the winter, thousands of visitors arrive from Mexico City, about a three- hour drive distant, in order to see the butterflies.
But Aridjis says that such eco-tourism also must be regulated or otherwise the crowds of people might scare the monarchs off for good.