AR-News: (MX)Monarch butterflies in trouble.

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Expert: Deforestation Harms Butterflies 
 Fri Jan 23,11:56 PM ET
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By MORGAN LEE, Associated Press Writer 
MEXICO CITY - Deforestation is threatening the monarch butterflies' winter refuge despite a crackdown on illegal logging, a U.S. researcher said Friday 
 
In an effort to protect hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies that migrate to Mexico from the United States and Canada each fall, authorities closed down illegal sawmills and arrested 28 people in November. 

"The Mexican law enforcement effort to protect these butterflies is not effective," said Lincoln Brower, considered a leading expert on the butterfly. 

Mexico's Environment Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment. 

The monarch butterflies return each year to carpet fir trees in Michoacan and neighboring Mexico state, an aesthetic and scientific wonder that attracts about 200,000 visitors annually. 

The butterflies represent a seasonal economic boon to the landowners, who manage four main butterfly sanctuaries in the 138,380-acre Monarch Butterfly Biosphere. 

Brower said when he flew over legally protected butterfly areas this month he saw working logging trucks, suggesting that illegal timbering continues to encroach on highland fir forests that are essential to the monarchs' survival. 

"You can go up in a 20-minute flight and see what's going on," said Brower, a professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida who has been studying Monarchs for nearly half a century. "It's obvious that there is massive deforestation on a grand scale." 

Brower said the rate of deforestation is more rapid than ever and the logging appears to be more brazen. 

"You can't tell me that you can have (logging) operations of that magnitude without people knowing what's going on," Brower said. 







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