MEXICO CITY: The traditional wintering site for tens of millions of monarch butterflies in central Mexico is under continuing threat after conservationists failed to halt the onslaught of illegal logging in the area.

The butterflies are in the middle of their annual journey of up to 2,800 miles from eastern Canada to the small area of evergreen fir forest that acts as their wintertime sanctuary. But, despite an unprecedented drive to protect it, deforestation is threatening the Monarch Biosphere Reserve and its visitors.

A recent report from the WWF showed deforestation of the area up nearly 10 per cent over the last year.

Lincoln Brower, a biologist and expert on the monarch, said the fact that the butterflies, which are due to arrive in November, often head for the same patch of forest that their great grandparents abandoned the previous spring adds to the threat. One colony, he said, arrived at a traditional wintering site in 2006 only to be wiped out because inadequate tree cover allowed temperatures to drop too low. There was nothing obviously stopping them moving to a healthy area of forest nearby. “If I knew why they do this then I would be sitting on a Nobel prize,” he said. “The logging has got to stop. Otherwise it’s a catastrophe.”

—Dawn/Guardian News Service