Mexico Saves Millions of Monarch Butterflies by Stopping Logging in its Tracks

In 2013, conservationists voiced their concern over disappearing monarch butterfly populations in Mexico. Several years later, however, the government has ensured that the insects are flourishing, thanks to their crack down on illegal logging.

According to the Mexican office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the country’s newest environmental police force has curbed the logging of forests in which they were deployed by 94%. Only 1.5 acres of the core butterfly conservation zone were lost due to illegal logging.

The police initiative, which currently employs over 1,000 officers, was created by Conanp, the Natural Protected Areas Commission, and the environmental police, according to Mexico News Daily.

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One of the most important protected zones in the program is the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve: a region comprised of roughly 140,000 acres (56,000 hectares) of butterfly habitat in Michoacán, Mexico. The region has been named a UNESCO world heritage site in light of the breathtaking amounts of monarchs that flood the area every winter.

Due to the success of the protection program, members of the environmental police have been deployed to 60 different forests and protected areas in total.

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