Monarch Butterflies in Mexico Still Threatened By Logging, New Study Finds Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
go to original September 10, 2013

Monarch butterflies are increasingly threaten by habitat reduction in Mexico, where the spend the winter after the long trek from northern climes. (Julie Oliver/Ottawa Citizen)

MEXICO CITY — Small-scale logging is worse than previously thought and may be contributing to threats facing the Monarch butterfly’s singular migration pattern, according to a new study of winter nesting grounds in central Mexico.

The reserve’s 13,550-hectare core zone lost 16.6 hectares of pine and fir trees so far in 2013, about half of that because of illegal logging, according to the study by Omar Vidal, head of Mexico’s chapter of the World Wildlife Fund, the WWF, and other authors. The rest of the loss was due to drought or disease-control removal of trees.

Mexico’s government has taken a strict stance to protect the Monarch grounds in recent years, shutting down sawmills and going after logging trucks, commercial loggers and their equipment. As a result, the reserve reached a milestone in 2012, when aerial photographs found almost no detectable deforestation due to logging over the previous year.

That finding was welcomed as a sign officials had reined in tree-cutting, which at its peak in 2005 depleted as many as 461 hectares annually in the reserve.

Read the rest at The Vancouver Sun

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!