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Monarch Butterfly Habitat Threatened

© Kenneth Friedman

An Environment News Network article and a National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast about Mexico's monarch butterflies being in danger give us yet another example of how some environmental issues do not recognize national borders.

As most post-cave dwellers in the United States and Canada know, monarch butterflies migrate from Canada to Mexico where they winter on trees. Actually, they winter on pine trees in a government mountain reserve in Michoacan, about 75 miles west of Mexico City. Their stunning orange and black bodies are a picture worthy of the cover of National Geographic magazine, which I believe it was.

But now, as these news reports relate, monarchs in some areas of Mexico have declined from 50 to 80 percent because illegal logging in government sanctuaries has cut the pine trees on which the monarchs congregate. In other words, their habitat has been destroyed.

Two years ago, butterflies occupied 42 acres of forest. Last year they occupied 32 acres. This year, only 13.8 acres, according to ENN.

Logging isn't the only reason the monarch population is down. So-called ecotourism has contributed to the problem, too. According to ENN's quote of Homero Aridjis, president of an environmental organization called the Group of 100, "Thousands of tourists who travel to the mountains of Michoacan end up trampling on the butterflies and an ever-growing flock of food vendors extend further into the reserve each year. . .."

Aridjis places some of the blame for the inability to deal with the habitat destruction on the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada. The treaty was supposed to include mechanisms for environmental protection but monarch situation demonstrates that the three governments haven't the political will or economic way to live up to the agreement.

The monarch butterfly issue is quite interesting. They winter in Mexico but they summer in Canada and the United States where they lay eggs on members of the milkweed family, generally one egg per plant. When the eggs hatch, the tiny larvae eat milkweed leaves and grow until they are ready to hang a chrysalis from a leaf and then go through the amazing process of becoming a butterfly.

Now let's play "What if."

What if logging, farming, grazing and development in Canada and the United States threatened to destroy all the milkweed plants? What would we do?

Why, our nongovernment environmental organizations would engage in Save the Monarch campaigns. School children would draw pictures, go on nature walks and collect pennies to save the monarchs. People would lobby to put monarchs on the endangered species list. Conservation groups would collect milkweed seeds to plant (assuming local weed enforcement laws could be overturned). Government funds would be allotted for research on monarch migration, predators, habitats, weed laws, breeding habits, and what-have-you.