MEXICO City (Reuters) – bad weather and the use of herbicides in the Flyway of the monarch butterfly in Canada and United States beat the number of copies that came to Mexico to Hibernate last year, said environmentalists Thursday.
Mexico recorded that monarchs colonies occupied 2.89 hectares of forest in the 2011/12 cycle, representing a 28 percent less from the little more than 4 hectares of the run-up, said Luis Fueyo, head of the National Commission of protected natural Areas (Conanp).
The recent data of surface occupied by the monarch is the third lowest since researchers began to keep a register in 1993.
“Canada and United States have to do much more to conserve the monarch butterfly in their breeding areas, said at the same press conference Omar Vidal, director at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Mexico.
“The use of herbicides affects a plant that is the asclepiadea, where the monarch larvae feed on”, explained.
Fueyo said, on carried out surveys to the butterflies, they have found residues of herbicides used mainly in plantations of soybeans and cotton in United States.
In 2000, Mexico created a stockpile of nearly 56,000 hectares in the Western State of Michoacan and part of the State of Mexico, area year after year reached butterflies forming vibrant orange clouds.
The Government and the WWF have managed to almost eradicate the illegal logging, which for years affect the sanctuary and now working in its reforestation with support from companies such as Telcel, brand that operates in Mexico the telephone América Móvil, of magnate Carlos Slim.
Vidal said that 6.7 have sown in the past decade million trees in the reserve, involving the communities that inhabit in care, and offering them alternative development that does not harm the environment.
“Communities now convinced it’s worth more standing than cut tree tree”, said.
(Report of Armando Tovar, edited by Javier Leira)
