[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Fwd: FW: REUTERS: LOGGERS SAID TO WIPE OUT 22 MILLION BUTTERFLIES




-
> Say it ain't so ...!!!
> 
> *****************************************
> Chris Canfield
> Executive Director
> NC State Office, National Audubon Society
> 410 Airport Rd.
> Chapel Hill, NC  27514
> 919-929-3899/fax: 919-929-4599 
> email: ccanfield@audubon.org 
> *****************************************
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pat Rasmussen [mailto:patr@CRCWNET.COM] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 10:30 AM
> To: FOREST-LEADER@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG
> Subject: REUTERS: LOGGERS SAID TO WIPE OUT 22
> MILLION BUTTERFLIES
> 
> 
> Loggers Said to Wipe Out 22 Million Butterflies
> Reuters   Mar 6 2001 9:56PM
> 
> MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - To regain protected forest
> land, loggers may 
> have deliberately wiped out some 22 million Monarch
> butterflies which 
> migrate annually from Canada to Mexico for the
> winter, a top 
> environmentalist said on Tuesday. Homero Aridjis,
> head of the
> environmental lobby Group of 100, told Reuters
> loggers were believed to
> have sprayed pesticide on the orange and black
> butterflies in order to
> regain some 216 square miles of forest declared
> protected by the
> government.
> 
> "There has been a massive slaughter of the
> butterflies in two 
> sanctuaries," Aridjis said. "This will affect the
> reproduction 
> process completely. Now we don't know how many
> butterflies will come 
> this autumn."
> 
> Millions of monarch butterflies migrate some 3,000
> miles annually to 
> flee the icy winter in Canada and the United States
> for the warmer 
> fir forests in Mexico's central Michoacan state,
> some 70 miles west 
> of Mexico City. For five months of the year,
> Michoacan's trees are
> turned into a flaming orange and the forest is
> carpeted with the
> delicate winged creatures. The migration has taken
> place for the past
> 10,000 years, Aridjis said. The butterflies normally
> arrive in early
> November and return north to lay eggs at the end of
> March.
> 
> In November last year, the government of former
> President Ernesto 
> Zedillo extended the land devoted to five
> sanctuaries. The move was in
> response to a study showing that farming and illegal
> logging had
> destroyed 44 percent of the original forest since
> 1971. Without drastic
> action, the study predicted the original forest
> would disappear in under
> 50 years.
> 
> "The new decree could have prompted this," Aridjis
> said. "If there 
> are no butterflies they can claim the trees without
> problem." But
> government environmental watchdog Profepa said it
> had not heard 
> of the butterfly slaughter, according to inspector
> Joel Rodriguez.
> "We haven't ever registered people using pesticides.
> But it's one of 
> the zones where they have the most illegal logging,"
> he said. "It 
> (the butterfly deaths) could also be a result of the
> freezing this 
> winter which happens every four or five years."
> 
> The U.S.-based nonprofit group Packard Foundation
> donated more than 
> $5 million to the Worldwide Fund for Nature to help
> the Mexican 
> government rent or buy logging rights from local
> residents to 
> compensate for lost income while developing
> alternative job sources.
> Aridjis said the loggers had targeted two
> sanctuaries -- Cerro San 
> Andres and Las Palomas -- in the past two weeks.
> 
> "The wings of the butterflies found inert on the
> ground had a strange 
> luster and there was a smell of pesticide and petrol
> in the 
> sanctuaries," he said.
> 
> RTR/SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-BUTTERFLIES-DC/
> Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights
> reserved. Republication 
> or redistribution of Reuters content, including by
> framing or 
> similiar means, is expressly prohibited without the
> prior written 
> consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for
> any errors or 
> delays in the content, or for any actions taken in
> reliance thereon. 
> All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL
> Anywhere.
> -- 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Pat Rasmussen
> Leavenworth Audubon Adopt-a-Forest 
> PO Box 154
> Peshastin, WA 98847
> Phone: 509-548-7640
> patr@crcwnet.com
> www.leavenworth-leaf.com


=====
Kate Finlayson
N. Chatham Co.,N.C.
katefin@yahoo.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. 
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/