Mexico expands monarch butterfly habitat

100 million or more monarch butterflies migrate annually from Canada to the central Mexican forest in Michoacan state

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- In the face of rapid destruction of the fragile monarch butterfly's winter habitat, Mexico more than tripled the size of a key reserve in the central Mexican mountain forest on Thursday.

Some 100 million or more of the orange and black butterflies migrate annually from Canada to the forest in Michoacan state beginning in the fall. A recent study showed 44 percent of the original habitat had disappeared since 1971, a rate that would destroy the forest within 50 years.

On Thursday the government announced it was increasing the size of the protected area to 216 square miles (56,000 hectares) from 62 square miles (16,000 hectares), and expanding the so-called core zone where cutting trees is banned. In buffer zones,regulated tree-cutting is permitted.

"The monarch butterfly reserve shows that conservation is not contrary to economic and social development," President Ernesto Zedillo said at a ceremony formalizing the move. Mexico proposed the expansion in September.

Some 99 peasant communities included in the protected area protested the plan, saying their livelihoods already had suffered from limitations set when wintering sites were protected in 1986.

In response to such concerns, a trust fund supported by the World Wildlife Fund and other organizations will buy logging rights from residents to compensate for lost income while developing alternative sources of jobs -- mainly tourism around the reserve.

Environmentalists hailed the unprecedented approach to conservation in Mexico.

Still, some peasant farmers such as Ceferino Diaz, 51, who attended the event, said they worried about losing a resource upon which they have depended for generations.

His grandparents were ceded the land where he now lives with his family, along with permission to harvest timber.

"With these resources we maintained our families, our children," Diaz said. Compensation for not harvesting timber amounts to less than half of what he could earn selling the wood, he said.

"It's good for the butterflies, but the pay is very little," Diaz said.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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