Monarch butterfly reserve saves trees but not butterflies from climate change
Baku, December 6 (AZERTAC). This small patch of mountain fir forest is a model of sorts for the global effort to save trees and fight climate change. The problem is that saving trees has not saved the forest`s most famous visitors: Monarch butterflies, AP reports.
Millions of Monarch butterflies migrate here from the United States and Canada every year, but their numbers declined by 75 percent last year alone, apparently because of changing weather and vegetation patterns.
The Monarch butterfly reserve shows how complex the battle against climate change has become, as the world prepares for a United Nations climate conference in Cancun next week. The conference is expected to focus in part on how best to preserve forests, with questions about who should pay and and how to treat communities who already live in the jungles and forests of developing countries.
Forest preservation is the goal of a popular U.N.-sponsored program known as REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, which garnered more mentions than any other program approved at the last international climate meeting in Copenhagen. The hope is for developed nations to pay poorer ones $22 to $38 billion per year to help them preserve forests.
The Monarch butterfly reserve is an example both of how the program could work, and of its limitations.
The reserve in the mountains west of Mexico City benefits from international help, such as payments to communities to preserve trees and alternative income projects. The deforestation rate there is down by about 95 percent.
Deforestation and soil degradation causes between 17 and 20 percent of greenhouse gases worldwide, a greater proportion than transport. But the idea of saving forests to trap greenhouse gases has come a long way since the days when simply planting a stretch of eucalyptus trees on a clear-cut plain would qualify as "offsets," the practice of balancing greenhouse-gas emissions in one place by "trapping" carbon in trees.
If the butterflies disappear - and by all accounts they are doing badly - interest in the forest could quickly evaporate. The REDD program has been improved to take into account the importance of biodiversity in forests.
While experts aren`t really sure what has been battering the butterflies, changing weather patterns are clearly taking a toll.
Last year, clusters of butterflies covered a total area equal to only about 1.9 hectares (4.7 acres), compared to about 8 hectares (almost 20 acres) in the 2008-2009 winter season. Experts say it is still too soon to estimate figures on this year`s migration.
Other news in this section
