North American Leaders Urged on the Protection of the Beautiful Monarch Butterflies

Environmentalists, artists and scientists urgently call for the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico to save the monarch butterflies by protecting the grounds they use for breeding. The monarch butterflies, distinctly identifiable by their orange and black coloring migrate by the millions to Mexico annually. It is a regular occurrence that it has become a ritual that is cherished by hordes of people each year. However it is quite alarming that their natural habitat is rapidly diminishing.

Meeting

U.S. President Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico are meeting in Mexico on Thursday, February 20. They will be discussing several issues including trade and economy. The concerned groups are urging the leaders to include the protection of the monarch butterflies in their agenda.

Declining numbers

From North America, the monarch butterflies travel about 2,500 miles to Mexico and parts of Southern California because they cannot stand the cold. Their migration starts in October or earlier if cold weather begins early. The number of butterflies migrating to Mexico through the years is declining steadily, but the recent data has become a cause for concern.

Habitat and food

The monarch butterflies have a unique trait. They hibernate in the same trees each year, considering that they belong to a new batch of monarchs. In Mexico they spend the winter clinging to the leaves and branches of the Oyamel fir. In Southern California they spend the winter on eucalyptus trees. The Oyamel fir forests in Mexico have limited distribution and only 2% of the original forest size remains today. Unrestrained illegal logging is one of the major reasons why the Oyamel fir forests are disappearing. On the other hand, the milkweed plants that are eradicated in the U.S. is to blame for the diminishing numbers. The plant hosts the eggs of the monarchs and provide food for their caterpillars. It is the only plant that monarch caterpillars eat.

Proposals

Well-known Mexican poet and monarch butterfly advocate Homero Aridjis likened the fast decline of monarch migration to ecological genocide. He said that the eradication of the milkweed plants will cause the collapse of the phenomenal migration. He said that the herbicide used on genetically modified soybean and corn varieties kill the milkweed and almost all other plants. The high value of ethanol derived from corn led to the increase in corn production. Concerned groups likened the disappearance of the monarchs to the disappearance of bees.

Mr. Aridjis has written a letter addressed to the nations’ leaders attending the meeting. He had gathered the signatures of Nobel laureates, concerned group representatives and famous academics. He had delivered the letter to government representatives in Mexico. Some of the solutions they proposed include milkweed to be planted along the medians and sides of the roads along the route taken by the monarchs during their annual migration.

Included in the letter are some statistical data. For the past 20 years, the butterflies used to occupy an area of 16.6 acres in the forests in western Mexico. This year, the area they covered was just 1.7 acres, which is a dramatic decrease of 90%. This translates to only seven of the regular 12 sites the butterflies used to cover.

The site of the meeting in Toluca, Mexico is just a few miles from where the butterflies hibernate.

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