The iconic monarch butterfly population has fallen dramatically, Last year Ontario's Point Pelee National Park cancelled its annual monarch count as there were too few to count.
Photo Credit: AP

NAFTA leaders urged to protect monarch butterfly

The leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico are being called upon to take action to save the disappearing Monarch butterfly.

Stephen Harper, Barack Obama, and Enrique Pena Nieto are meeting this week in Mexico to discuss issues like the environment, trade, immigration, security, education and more.

It’s a full agenda, but they are being urged by a group involving scientists, environmentalists and others, to review farming and logging practices which are having a devastating effect on the iconic black and orange insect.

Monarch migrate up to 4000 kilometres or more every year from southern Canada and the US to central Mexico, in a migration that spans more than one generation.

In recent years, their numbers have plummeted drastically. Blame has usually been put on illegal logging in the oyamel fir forests in Mexico where the colourful butterflies overwinter.

“IT IS ECOLOGICAL GENOCIDE”, H Aridjis

null
A central US farmer sprays the weed killer glyphosate across genetically modified Monsanto corn. Massive industrial corn and soy crops are being grown for the mandatory etyhanol fuel industry, The crops and herbicides have eradicated milkweed which is critical to the monarch’s survival. © Seth Perlman- AP

However, the monarchs require the milkweed plant where they plant their eggs and where the monarch caterpillars eat as their only source of food and now more attention is being focused on the US Midwest.

This is where huge industrial crops of genetically modified corn and soy crops are being planted to satisfy requirements for the ethanol fuel industry and where vast amounts of herbicide are being sprayed to keep weeds out.  Unfortunately new crops have wiped out fields where there used to be milkweed, and the herbicides kill off any milkweed plants in the crop fields.

Mexican poet and environmentalist Homer Aridjis is head of the Group of 100. He says, “By killing the plant, you are killing the monarch butterfly. If they don’t stop the destruction of the milkweed, in a few years the migratory phenomenon could collapse. It is ecological genocide,”

Aridjis points to a correlation between the start of NAFTA, the loss of monarch fields, the increase in herbicide use, and the decline of the monarch.

He is calling for a milkweek corridor so the monarchs can find nourishment on their epic migrations.

 ARIDJIS and Group of 100 open letter

 WWF Open Letter  

Homer Aridjis editorial

 

Categories: Economy, Environment & Animal Life, International, Politics
Tags: , ,

Do you want to report an error or a typo? Click here!

For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.