4.6 million to protect butterfly reserve

December 9, 2007
Mexico's mass butterfly migration
It’s one of nature’s miracles – every year, 250m butterflies migrate the 3,000 miles from Canada to Mexico.
Ay, caramba!” cried Luis Miguel as we lumbered on our mountain ponies through the Mexican pine forest. “Here comes the welcoming committee!” Down the trail towards us, swirling in a shaft of sunshine, swept thousands of orange-and-black butterflies. If Matisse had invented the kaleidoscope, it would have looked like this, a vortex refracting with flashes of amber. 
Turning back in my saddle, I could see the faces of my friends Humberto and Rosie wreathed in smiles. Butterflies were tumbling over their horses’ heads, eddying around their shoulders, fanning their cheeks with imperceptible wing-beats. 
The gods had blessed us. That morning, the sky had been overcast. Luis Miguel had been worried we might be in for a “ dia triste” – a sad day. But the clouds had cleared and now the butterflies were taking flight, using the warmth of the sun to recharge their batteries. This was just a tiny posse, descending from the main colony to a lower altitude in search of moisture. Wild lupins by the path were heavy with butterflies sucking up tiny droplets of nectar. 
Ahead of us, at 12,000ft, was the butterflies’ roosting site, one of a dozen or so nuclei in a small area of precipitous montane forest. The location was stunning, but why the butterflies choose this precise spot in the Mexican state of Michoacan, 130 miles north of Mexico City, as their winter residence is one of the many mysteries that surround these tiny creatures. he monarchs arrive here in November and leave again in March. The spectacle is one of the most incredible phenomena in the natural world, and still one of the most difficult to explain.

President Felipe Calderon visited the Sierra Chincua monarch butterfly reserve in the mountains of central Mexico on Sunday to announce his plan to enhance and publicize the reserve.

Under the new program, the Calderon government will spend $4.6 million to buy additional equipment and advertising for the reserve, which is protected by Mexico and also internationally under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program.

"This nature reserve annually receives millions of butterflies that come to spend the winter in our ancient sacred firs after a journey of over 4,000 kilometers from Canada to Mexico," said President Calderon.

About $36.4 million in government funding already comes to the butterfly reserve each year to support a team of park rangers who attempt to protect the trees favored by the butterflies from armed groups of lumber thieves.

The Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation and the World Wildlife Fund say these efforts have resulted in a 48 percent drop in illegal logging, compared to last year. "We're gaining ground in the fight against illegal logging," Calderon said.

Monarch butterflies have one of the world's most unusual migration patterns. Every September, millions of the black-and-orange insects fly 3,400 miles from their breeding grounds in the forests of eastern Canada and parts of the eastern United States to the mountains of Mexico where they seek the same locations their forebears once inhabited.

There they gather in 10 to 13 colonies in the Oyamel fir, Abies religiosa, forests of Mexico. Oyamel firs grow only at high altitudes, between 2,400 and 3,600 meters above sea level.
 
In late March, the monarchs return to U.S. and Canada where they breed up to five generations before heading back to Mexico. A typical butterfly will make just one migration during its lifetime. Some monarchs do not travel the entire migration route but reproduce and die along the way. Their offspring continue the flight.

The butterflies return to the U.S. and Canada in late March, where they breed and cycle through up to five generations before heading back south. Scientists say they are genetically programmed to return to Mexico, where they settle into the same mountains their ancestors inhabited the year before.

According to Brower, sometimes they even return to the exact same trees — probably because previous monarchs have marked the area through a mechanism scientists don't yet understand.

The monarchs that spend the winter in Mexico do not reproduce until they return to the U.S. and have a much longer life span than those born in the spring and summer.

Omar Vidal, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Mexico program, applauded Calderon's plan.

Mr Calderon's administration has boosted efforts to protect the environment, promoting plans to combat global warming and plant 250 million trees across the country this year. However in a developing country plagued by pollution and spotty regulation, progress is slow.

Monarch butterflies have become an ecological symbol most Mexicans can rally around – they adorn licence plates in Michoacan, Mr Calderon's native state.

Police even stand guard along some highways, slowing cars that might hit the butterflies as they swarm across the road.

The butterfly reserve is patrolled by park rangers with assault rifles, searching for armed gangs of illegal loggers.

Unauthorised logging threatens the monarchs, which need leafy foliage for protection.