Tourism Metamorphosis May Save the Monarchs' Refuge in Mexico

ANGANGUEO, Mexico -- His weathered face shaded under a sweat-stained straw hat, Francisco Ambrocia Martinez pronounces the still-unfamiliar words carefully, a bit uneasily - words like "ecosystem,'' "reforestation'' and "ecology.'' A peasant farmer for the last 15 years, he appears a little uncomfortable with his new role as environmentalist.

"We've made the decision to protect this place, so that it will still be here for our children and their children,'' says Ambrocia, standing in front of a thin stream that cuts through stands of tall oyamel firs.

Above him, the sky is a living blizzard of orange, filled with the muffled flick-flick of tens of thousands of butterflies. They dip and glide around Ambrocia, dropping a few at a time to flutter on top of the water, where they drink deeply in preparation for a long journey ahead.

Ambrocia is standing in what is perhaps a unique place on Earth - the winter home of the vast majority of monarch butterflies that, in the summer, flit across back yards throughout the eastern United States and Canada.

According to environmentalists and many scientists, this place may also be one of the world's most endangered. The forest high in the mountains of southern Mexico, they say, provides a lesson in how hard it is to protect even the most precious of natural treasures in the face of desperate poverty and rancorous politics.

The region's poverty has for generations pushed communities to cut more deeply into the forest on which the butterflies depend. A recent boom in tourism, however, has turned some people from pillagers into protectors, providing what environmentalists say may be the best hope for saving this spot.

"In comparative terms, this is like a human masterpiece of the scale of `The Last Supper' or Teotihuacan,'' the massive pyramids outside Mexico City, environmentalist Homero Aridjis says of the region's forests and the butterflies they support. "It's now or never. This is our final opportunity to save what is basically a biological masterpiece.''

Before the area was found by a Canadian researcher in 1975, scientists searched for more than three decades to locate the few hundred acres of cloud forest in the state of Michaocan, west of Mexico City, where as many as 100 million butterflies gather energy for the trip north. In an incredible feat of navigation, almost the entire population of monarchs east of the Rockies converges here every November.

In what has become one of the great mysteries of science, the butterfly colonies that return here are three generations removed from the ones that left. Scientists are still uncertain how such an enormous population - and one so widely dispersed - can find its way to a tiny spot that none of the monarchs has ever seen. It is clear, though, that these mountains provide the rare combination of temperature, water and seasonal change crucial for the migratory cycle.

But over the past two years, the number of monarchs wintering here has diminished by 70 percent. Researchers are still arguing over why. Reasons may vary from the El Nino weather phenomenon to dry conditions along the migration route. Mexican scientists say the population drop could simply be cyclical.

But the dramatic size of the decrease worries many top scientists and environmentalists, who are increasingly concerned about logging, erosion and watershed degradation in the monarchs' winter home.

If the destruction continues, it may break the migratory cycle entirely, they fear, and North America's summer monarchs could virtually disappear.

"The destruction of the forests would eliminate the capacity of the butterflies to survive the winter down there, effectively wiping out this migration,'' says Chip Taylor, a monarch expert at the University of Kansas. "That forest is really the Achilles' heel of this whole thing.''

A decree from Mexico's president protected nearly 40,000 acres in five butterfly sanctuaries created in 1986. Logging is banned on about 28 percent of the land, and it is allowed only by permit on the rest. Investigators say, however, that trucks full of illegal logs still come out of some protected areas at night.

Many of the trees are cut not for big profits but to meet the barest of needs. An entire oyamel sells on the region's open market for as little as $8 to $10. For the peasant farmers who still own the preserves, however, logging has been a prime source of income. The land was given to them decades ago by the Mexican government.

Hoping that it will become more lucrative to save the trees than cut them down, many butterfly advocates are pinning their hopes on the ecotourism that has begun to flourish here. As many as 5,000 tourists converge on these mountains each weekend between mid-October and mid-April, filling the improvised parking lots and hastily constructed paths that lead to the monarch colonies.

Ambrocia, who heads one of the 36 families that own most of the land in the Sierra Chincua preserve, says tourism has turned into a boon. Visitors pay $1.50 to enter the preserve, and the landowners divide the proceeds. Two of Ambrocia's sons sell food to the tourists, while another hocks T-shirts and monarch refrigerator magnets.

"It's been a big source of income for us,'' Ambrocia says. "It makes sense to protect it.''

Twenty men, including Ambrocia, take turns standing watch in the preserve 24 hours a day. Ambrocia says that illegal logging, at least in his preserve, has virtually stopped.

But ecotourism has brought its own problems. There is little government regulation, and garbage is strewn along the paths. The tourists raise noise and dust that, scientists say, may be harming the butterflies.

"It's not really ecotourism,'' says Monica Missrie, an ecologist for the World Wildlife Foundation. "It's just tourism. There is nothing `eco' about it.''

This year, the butterfly colonies began moving from the cold mountaintops to the warmer slopes below earlier than normal. That, researchers say, was a direct result of the tourists' presence. It could affect the monarchs' reproduction process, they fear.

The larger problem, scientists say, is that the preserves are becoming islands of isolated forest. Landowners outside the sanctuaries receive few benefits from the tourism, and logging is continuing there at a furious pace.

"Each year the cutting comes closer,'' says Carmelo Martinez, 26, a member of a cooperative that owns part of one butterfly preserve. "Some don't understand that they shouldn't cut. Some understand it but do it out of need.''

Scientists say that the growing isolation of the preserves is affecting the health of the larger ecosystem on which the butterfly colonies depend. And scientists have found new colonies outside the protected zones.

Many observers hope a solution will come later this year. The Mexican government has agreed to revise the decree that protects the preserves. Environmentalists want more land set aside. They want tourism better regulated and the watersheds on which the butterfly colonies depend protected.

But the politics will likely be volatile. The 1986 decree creating the preserves did not compensate owners for the new restrictions on their land. Owners of one preserve immediately logged their land in protest. The butterfly colonies there have since moved or disappeared.

The topic is so sensitive that the World Wildlife Foundation refuses to publicly release its recommendation for new preserve boundaries.

"The landowners are clamoring for the preserves to be decreased, not increased,'' Missrie says. "There are a lot of different interests involved. It's a very conflictive area.''

Government negotiations with landowners are set to begin this fall. Many observers say the Mexican government appears aware of the importance of the butterflies' winter home and seems willing to go to greater lengths to protect it.

Others point out that Mexico's track record on environmental protection has never been good. With presidential elections scheduled for next year, the government may be unwilling to alienate people who survive on the same land as the butterflies.

"The authorities sometimes seem to be accomplices'' in environmental destruction, says Aridjis, the Mexican environmentalist. "The authorities are too often on the wrong side, protecting the transgressors. It's a lack of political will to defend properly the environment.''

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