The Monarch habitat deforestation "crisis" in Mexico

[Patrick Foley]

    I have worked enough with maps made from satellite and aerial photographs
to know they need ground truthing. Nonetheless the animation seems more
compelling to me than the two isolated photographs (which show a good deal of
soil erosion and vegetation loss over 10 years). I sure hope there are no
fires or disease outbreaks in the two patches of Monarchs.
    Thanks as always to Paul for his interesting data sources, but I am still
mystified why Paul thinks scientists are conspiring to destroy him and all he
holds dear including the right to deforest North America.

Unable to flame at length due to heavy teaching and family load,
Patrick Foley

Paul Cherubini wrote:

> Reality:
>
> http://www.saber.net/~monarch/1990.jpeg
> (early morning shot which doesn't highlight tree trunks)
>
> http://www.saber.net/~monarch/2001.jpeg
> (late afternoon shot which highlights tree trunks)
>
> vs. Brower study Animation:
> http://www.saber.net/~monarch/Angangueoanimated.jpeg
> (colony  in the middle is El Rosario Sanctuary)
>
> vs. New York Times Sept. 12, 2000 article which stated:
>
> "Now an international team of researchers has reported that what was a
> broad swath of thousands of acres of intact forest just 30 years ago has
> since been reduced to peppered remnants in a sea of farms, homes,
> cattle-grazing areas and logged and degraded woods. This has occurred
> even in areas designated as protected monarch sanctuaries for more
> than a decade."
>
> "The survey, the first scientific study of the monarchs' habitat in the
> mountains of central Mexico, mapped forest changes using aerial
> photographs taken over three decades. The findings, which were
> made available to The New York Times, showed that only a
> little more than half of what was intact forest remained. The
> rest has suffered some degree of degradation, from minor logging
> to having had the forest entirely removed. The researchers estimate
>  that in 50 years, at the current rate of deforestation, nearly all the
>  original forest will be similarly degraded."
>
> ''From what I've seen there year after year, I predicted it would be
> bad and getting worse,'' said Dr. Lincoln P. Brower, a monarch
> biologist at Sweet Briar College who was an author of the new study
> with colleagues at the National Autonomous University of Mexico
> and the World Wildlife Fund. ''But I didn't predict it would be this bad.
> The maps just floored me.''
>
> Paul Cherubini Placerville, Calif.
>
>
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