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Community Based Environmental Management in the Monarch Biosphere Reserve By Anna Quisel March 21, 2021

The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR) of Mexico is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising 139,000 acres of mountainous forest straddling the Mexican and Michoacán States, only 60 miles northwest of Mexico City. The forests of these mountains provide overwintering shelter for the migratory eastern monarch butterfly.

Since the founding of the MBBR on privately held land belonging to dozens of indigenous communities and ajidos (communal land farming cooperatives), the well-being of these local stakeholders has been recognized to be essential to the sustainability of both the reserve and the migratory North American monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus).[2] Facing threats to the reserve’s forests from illegal logging, human settlement, agriculture, and climate change, international conservation organizations and local organizations have worked together with reserve neighbors and residents to support livelihoods that preserve the forest, for the benefit of monarchs and people alike.

History ________________ Dr. Fred A. Urquhart began his studies of monarch butterflies in 1935. At the time, it was clear that monarchs were spending the eight warm months of the year migrating through the northern part of their range in the United States and Canada, feeding on flower nectar and laying eggs on milkweed host plants. Yet the monarch butterflies’ winter destination was unknown to the scientific world. Urquhart and his wife, Nora Urquhart, spent forty years seeking this destination.[3]

On January 2, 1975, members of the Urquhart team, who were hiking in the mountains of Michoacán, spotted and followed a monarch butterfly high on a mountainside to a thick grove of oyamel (sacred) fir trees. Within the grove, they were awed by tens of millions of monarchs layered thickly on every oyamel tree trunk and branch. The Urquharts’ team had discovered that monarchs roost in densely compact colonies in predictable locations high on these mountains.[4]

In response to increasing destruction of the forested overwintering sites, the Mexican president issued a decree in 1980 designating a “Reserve and Wildlife Zone” to protect the main monarch butterfly overwintering sites. In 1986, a second presidential decree established more protections covering 39,000 acres.

In November of 2000, then president Ernesto Zedillo further expanded protections of the mountain forests creating the current 139,000 acre Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.[5] The boundaries of the MBBR were chosen to protect 33,500 acres of key overwintering sites of the monarch butterfly within which logging became illegal, and to provide a 106,000 acre buffer zone.[6]

A World Heritage Natural Phenomenon - the Eastern Monarch Migration ________________

Born with mysterious directional and orientation abilities, eastern (east of the Rocky Mountains) North American monarch butterflies travel precisely to gatherings, known as colonies, in several predictable locations in the MBBR each winter.[7] Seventy percent of the eastern monarch butterfly population overwinters in the MBBR. The monarch butterflies that arrive in the MBBR have never been there before, but are the 4th to 6th generation born during the course of their annual 5,000 mile migration. This multiple generation journey from Mexico to Canada, then back to Mexico, is the longest known regularly repeated migration among all insects.[8]

Arriving at the MBBR for the winter months between November and March, monarchs find ideal conditions in the oyamel fir forests with cool temperatures ranging from just above freezing to 50°F. Huddled together, tens of thousands on a single evergreen tree, the monarchs benefit from enough ambient humidity and warmth to escape freezing and dehydration, and are able to survive on their fat reserves.[9] Research shows that only intact, unthinned forest provides the canopy density required to reliably protect monarchs from wet and cold conditions through the winter.[10]

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre describes the winter spectacle: “Every autumn, millions, perhaps a billion, butterflies from wide areas of North America return to the site and cluster on small areas of the forest reserve, colouring its trees orange and literally bending their branches under their collective weight.” [11] The sights and sounds of the “superlative natural phenomenon” of the overwintering monarch butterfly, hosted in these uniquely suitable forests, led to the designation of the MBBR as a World Heritage Site in 2008.[12]

Threats ________________

Before the reserve was founded, locals relied on farming, logging, and mining for income, and these remain important local industries.[13] A site with many competing interests, the reserve was home to 100,000 people in 2007, and land ownership is dispersed among 100 properties.[14] Despite the Mexican government’s designation of the site as a national biosphere reserve, only two of the hundred properties are nationally owned (5% of the core, 0.01% of the buffer area), while the rest are held by 57 ejidos (49% of the core, 48% of the buffer area), 13 communal groups (36% of the core, 26% of the buffer area), and 28 private individual and unidentified owners (10% of the core, 25% of the buffer area).[15]  The pressures of population and economic growth over the past 30 years have altered 50 percent of the reserve’s original forests.[16]  Large scale logging, and even more concerning of late, small scale logging both persist within the bounds of the reserve.[17]

More recently, drug cartels largely based in Michoacán have been encroaching on the reserve, participating in land theft, lucrative illegal timber trade, and suspected violence directed at local MBBR proponents.[18] In January of 2020, Homero Gómez González, a former logger who had become a supervisor within the MBBR was found drowned, with head injuries.[19] Shortly after on February 3, 2020, Raúl Hernández, colleague of González and MBBR guide, was found dead with his body bearing signs of violence.[20] Mexican government authorities reported that the deaths were under investigation but witnesses were reluctant to step forward.[21]

Fellow Mexican environmentalist Homero Aridjis, spoke of the growing fear in the community among defenders of the butterfly reserve: “If they can kidnap and kill the people who work for the reserves, who is going to defend the environment in Mexico?”[22] According to Eduardo Rendón, the Program Director of the World Wildlife Fund monarch program in Mexico, workers in conservation-related projects and especially those attempting to enforce limits on logging in the reserve are scared.[23]  Additionally, locals are concerned that news of violence in the monarch region will discourage tourism.[24]

Global climate change presents an even more pervasive threat. The region of the MBBR has experienced several years of violent storms, high temperatures, and dry conditions. Increasingly, bark beetles and other pests kill parched trees. To re-establish oyamel trees in cooler, more humid conditions, a forest geneticist, Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero, has planted oyamel firs at higher elevation, but the elevations are not quite high enough for the monarchs, who are already clustering at trees near the top of the mountains. Sáenz-Romero plans transplants of oyamel firs to higher peaks outside the reserve, seeking the elevation to achieve overwintering habitat for monarchs, but it is unknown whether the monarchs will find oyamel firs in a new location.[25]

Monarchs themselves suffer from severe weather events due to climate change, and other challenges during the eight summer months away from the MBBR. Climatic shifts are hurting monarchs and milkweed alike.[26] Additionally, monarchs are losing milkweed habitat due to increasing use of glyphosate and development that encroaches on areas that previously supported milkweed.[27] Community Based Approaches ________________

With the institution of the MBBR in 2000, logging was banned in the core zone. Recognizing the need to directly compensate the owners of land in the core zone, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation (FMCN) secured financial support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the then Mexican Secretariat of the Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries (SEMARNAP), and the States of Michoacán and Mexico.[28]  The $7.5 million Monarch Fund was established to offer payments to these landowners for the transfer of forest rights, promotion of conservation practices, and ecotourism. [29] Originally jointly managed by WWF-Mexico and the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature,[30] in 2009 the fund transitioned to an endowment held entirely by the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature with oversight from WWF. Previous payments per acre of intact forest doubled and were guaranteed through 2026.[31] This ongoing long-term, official arrangement provides confidence and transparency to participating communities.[32]

WWF, the Mexican government, and other organizations are helping to develop local income sources that are compatible with preserving the forest of the reserve. A social and jobs campaign promoted the idea that sustaining the monarch butterfly migration could lead to a thriving local monarch-based economy. According to WWF-Mexico’s Eduardo Rendón, “for the thousands of inhabitants of the Reserve, their lives were transformed with training, employment, tourism, and even the possibility of having their own businesses.”[33] In addition to jobs directly related to the MBBR on security patrols, in tourism providing services to 120,000 yearly visitors, and in 13 tree nurseries providing 1.5 million saplings yearly for reserve reforestation, local community members find jobs in thirty-four mushroom houses, and a trout farm which provide protein and income.[34]

An example of other non-governmental organizations working in the MBBR, the Monarch Butterfly Fund (distinct from the Monarch Fund) founded in 2009, describes its mission as follows: “ To foster the conservation of North American monarch butterflies and their migration through habitat conservation, research, monitoring, education and support for sustainable community development in and near monarch habitats in Mexico.”[35] The Monarch Butterfly Fund focuses on education for residents and neighbors to the reserve, including environmental education in schools and in local communities to increase understanding of and appreciation for monarch butterflies, their migration, and the soil and water needed to sustain the forest. The Monarch Butterfly Fund also offers training in reforestation, forest stewardship, sustainable farming, and ecotourism.[36]

For 22 years, Alternare, a Mexican non-governmental organization, has worked with local communities to develop sustainable solutions to survival in and near the MBBR. Recognized for excellence in improving rural life in Mexico, Alternare was granted a 2020 Visionaries Award by the Inter-American Development Bank, with the following statement: Alternare’s “sustainable comprehensive development model focuses on strengthening individual, group and community capacities to guarantee food security and sovereignty, eradicate poverty through productive projects, and promote the conservation and recovery of its natural resources.” Additionally, Alternate was chosen by Premios Compartir Fundación Social IAP in 2020 as the best institution in Mexico  for community development.[37] Specific accomplishments cited by Alternare include conservation of water through installation of cisterns and dry toilets, forest conservation through introduction of wood saving stoves, a model of savings and community loans, a trial of organic berry farming, education about the importance of the forest for water supply, and organic farming training for women along with food preservation techniques.[38]

Impacts ________________

Forest The establishment of protections in the monarch overwintering forests followed by establishment of the MBBR, with concomitant forest protection measures and financial benefits shared with local communities, has proven a success in reducing forest loss in the protected area. At the time of the UNESCO survey of the proposed World Heritage site in 2007, the report noted that while the overwintering forest groves within the reserve were preserved, much of the mountain forest outside the reserve’s buffer zone had been clear cut, with topsoil eroded due to slash and burn agriculture.[39] The WWF-Mexico’s annual monitoring program of forest within the core of the MBBR has documented low rates of illegal logging of less than 50 acres per year in the past decade.[40]

In 2008-9, the year in which the reserve became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the year in which the Monarch Fund began to offer higher payments for forest preservation, logging in the core forest dropped dramatically.[41] Around that time, the federal government also increased enforcement of laws in the reserve.[42]  Since 2009, rather than illegal logging, losses of forest in the reserve have been primarily attributed to drought, parasites, fires and winds, and climate change.[43] In addition to preserving existing forest, with conservation incentives and education, local communities have replanted 37,000 acres of native forest.[44]

However, the most recent 2020 survey of the forest cover of the MBBR conducted jointly by the WWF-TELMEX Telcel Foundation Alliance, the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico Institute of Biology revealed a loss of 50 acres, four times greater than in the prior year.[45] Too early to identify this as the beginning of a trend or an exception, the researchers determined that these losses of forest were mostly due to illegal logging,

Unfortunately, the groundwork for extensive future illegal logging operations has been laid over the years.[46] Ramírez et al. (2007) mapped existing roads in the MBBR and identified roads penetrating throughout the buffer and core zones, indicative of widespread illegal logging and road creation. The researchers stated that the existing road network was dense enough to “compromise the viability of the Reserve” and recommended road removal in the reserve.[47] Future road removal will help reduce the chances of large scale logging in the MBBR.

Monarch Butterflies Eastern migratory monarch butterfly populations have been declining overall since 1996, and are currently near historic lows due to multiple factors. Large impacts to the monarch population have resulted from extreme weather events attributed to global climate change, widespread logging until 2000 of up to 40% of the forest in the MBBR resulting in the permanent loss of several butterfly colonies, and the widespread introduction of glyphosate in 1999 in farming in the United States and Canada.[48]

Despite near stabilization of the forest in the MBBR since 2009, the monarch population has not rebounded; although the population may have overall stabilized since 2009. The challenges monarchs face outside the reserve during their eight months in the north may outweigh the positive steps taken in their overwintering territory in Mexico.

People With tens of thousands of people living within the MBBR, and with one million living just outside, high rates of poverty and unemployment continue to plague the monarch butterfly region.[49] Tourism, the most direct economic benefit from the MBBR for the region, does not benefit local landowners equally, depending upon exactly where the monarchs overwinter. Despite all the efforts to develop a sustainable economy, many people from the area have been forced to migrate to find work, or to resort to illegal logging. While town centers in the region may benefit from services, rural communities lack electricity, sanitation and running water, and rely on firewood for fuel.[50]

Despite the lack of a net benefit from the monarch driven economic transformation in the region, perhaps a positive spiritual shift has occurred. WWF-Mexico’s Rendón stated that “the very same inhabitants that first viewed the monarch as a mere insect. . have appropriated the vision, processes, projects, and the companies. They now know that they are environmental and moral leaders and an example for other conservation initiatives.”[51] Despite the fear among MBBR workers resulting from the violent 2020 killings of two local members of the monarch conservation community, optimism remains, as evidenced by the fall 2020 Alternare report of over 400 requests by people to enter their instructor training program in October 2020.[52] References ________________ Agren D. 2020 Jan 30. Mexico: defender of monarch butterflies found dead two weeks after he vanished. the Guardian. [accessed 2021 Mar 21]. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/30/mexico-activist-monarch-butterflies-dead-homero-gomez-gonzalez. Agren D, Milman O. 2020 Feb 8. Fear in Mexico as twin deaths expose threat to monarch butterflies and their defenders. the Guardian. [accessed 2021 Mar 20]. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/08/monarch-butterflies-under-threat-mexico-aoe. Alternare. n.d. Alternare.org. [accessed 2021 Mar 21]. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=https://www.alternare.org/&prev=search&pto=aue. City A in M. 2021 Feb 25. “A cause for worry”: Mexico’s monarch butterflies drop by 26% in year. the Guardian. [accessed 2021 Mar 20]. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/25/mexico-monarch-butterflies-winter-resting-grounds-down. Flores-Martínez JJ, Martínez-Pacheco A, Rendón-Salinas E, Rickards J, Sarkar S, Sánchez-Cordero V. 2019. Recent Forest Cover Loss in the Core Zones of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Front Environ Sci. 7. doi:10.3389/fenvs.2019.00167. [accessed 2021 Mar 22]. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00167/full. Garcia Serrano E. 2018 Sep 18. Monarch Fund: saving the Monarch Butterfly. Panorama: Solutions for a Healthy Planet. [accessed 2021 Mar 22]. https://panorama.solutions/en/solution/monarch-fund-saving-monarch-butterfly. Kormann C. 2021. Saving the Butterfly Forest. The New Yorker.(February 15 & 22 2021). [accessed 2021 Mar 21]. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/15/saving-the-butterfly-forest. Monarch Butterfly Fund. Mission & Vision. Monarchconservation.org. [accessed 2021 Mar 21]. https://monarchconservation.org/mission-vision/. Rainforest Alliance. 2010 May. Monarch Butterflies Drive Environmental and Social Metamorphosis in Mexico. Eco-Index. [accessed 2021 Mar 1]. http://www.eco-index.org/eco-exchange/2010/may_10_01.html. Ramírez M, Miranda R, Zubieta R, Jiménez M. 2007. Land Cover and Road Network Map for the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, 2003. Journal of Maps. 3:181–190. doi:10.1080/jom.2007.9710837. Oberhauser K. 2021 Jan. WWF-Mexico Press Release: Monarch Winter Numbers Are In - A Decline of 26%. JourneyNorth.org. [accessed 2021 Mar 22]. https://journeynorth.org/monarchs/resources/article/03032021-monarch-winter-numbers-are-decline-26. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. 2007. Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve World Heritage Nomination Document. https://whc.unesco.org/uploads/nominations/1290.pdf. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. n.d. Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. [accessed 2021 Mar 1]. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1290/. U.S. Forest Service. n.d. Monarch Butterfly Migration and Overwintering. United States Department of Agriculture. [accessed 2021 Mar 21]. https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/Monarch_Butterfly/migration/. Vidal O, López‐García J, Rendón‐Salinas E. 2014. Trends in Deforestation and Forest Degradation after a Decade of Monitoring in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Conservation Biology. 28(1):177–186. doi:10.1111/cobi.12138. World Wildlife Fund. 2011 Jan 4. WWF Mexico: Monarch Butterfly Region. WWF Mexico. [accessed 2021 Mar 22]. https://web.archive.org/web/20110104180128/http://www.wwf.org.mx/wwfmex/prog_bosques_fs_mm.php. World Wildlife Fund. 2013 Feb 28. Protecting Monarch Butterflies and Their Forests | Stories | WWF. World Wildlife Fund. [accessed 2021 Mar 22]. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/protecting-monarch-butterflies-and-their-forests. WWF. Monarch butterfly | WWF. [accessed 2021 Mar 21]. https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/wildlife_practice/profiles/insects/monarch_butterfly/.

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