Illegal logging has almost tripled in the Mexican wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly, say investigators. They are concerned that means fewer may survive to start the spring migration to Canada and the northern United States.
No one butterfly makes the 5,470 km trip. It’s not clear how successive generations find their way north to the same pine forests every year. It could be that the butterflies release chemicals marking the way. Some scientists think that if the numbers are too low, the traces will not be strong enough for other butterflies to follow.
Illegal logging ongoing
At their peak in 1996, monarchs covered 18 hectares in the mountains west of Mexico City where the forest canopy insulates them against the cold of winter. Last winter, the monarchs covered just 1.13 hectares.
The Mexican government has paid communities development funds in return for preserving a 56-hectare reserve in the mountains, but some illegal logging still goes on.
“The main problem in Mexico is the lack of protection,” said activist Homero Aridjis. He noted that some officials at the reserve have been replaced and that the president of Mexico recently appointed his cousin to head the agency that oversees it.
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