Announcement: North American Conference on the Monarch Butterfly

[Phil Schappert]

North American Conference on the Monarch Butterfly

Announcement:

A North American Conference on the Monarch Butterfly will be held in
Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico from Monday, November 10 through Saturday,
November 15, 1997. The ultimate goal of the conference will be to develop a
Tri-National North American strategy for the protection of Monarch
butterflies.

The objectives of the conference will be:

1) to contribute to our understanding of the conservation issues
surrounding the Monarch butterfly from a tri-national and a
multidisciplanary perspective; 2) to provide a forum for dialog among
people from Canada, Mexico, the United States and other countries
interested in the many facets of Monarch butterfly biology and
conservation, including educators, government officials, representatives of
conservation groups and scientists; 3) to present initiatives addressing
Monarch butterfly ecology, behavior and conservation; and 4) identify and
propose actions which address both the conservation requirements of the
Monarch butterfly and associated human needs.

The conference will include three days of oral and poster presentations in
four thematic areas: 1) Biology, including ecology, reproduction, larval
ecology, overwintering biology and migration; 2) Education, including both
formal and informal outreach programs, commerce for educational purposes,
and butterfly gardening; 3) Conservation and Protection, including
population dynamics and monitoring, pesticides and pollutants,
socioeconomic problems associated with conservation, restoration projects,
reserves and habitat management; and 4) Socioeconomic Issues, including
patterns of land use, land ownership/development and environmental
deterioration, public participation in consensus building processes, costs
and benefits of ecotourism, and trade in Monarch products.

The first three days of the conference will be followed by 2 days of open
public symposia consisting of roundtable discussions among specialists and
representatives of all stakeholders. Specific subjects will include: 1)
monitoring and data collection; 2) education and communication strategies;
3) sustainable development and Monarch conservation in breeding habitat and
overwintering sites in Mexico and California; 4) biodiversity and resource
management; and 5) national and international laws, policies and
regulations. The final day of the conference will be used to integrate the
symposia reports into items to be considered for a tri-national action plan.

To receive a call for submissions or for additional information, please
contact: Irene Pisanty, Commission for Environmental Cooperation, 393 St.
Jacques Street West, Suite 200, Montreal, Quebec H2Y 1N9, Canada, fax:
(514) 350-4314, email: ipisanty at ccemtl.org

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Phil Schappert
Biology, York University
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
philjs at yorku.ca