Fw: [DPLEX-L:33314] Extensive logging in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve on NASA Website & NYT

Neil Jones neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk
Fri Mar 7 07:04:22 EST 2008


Extensive logging in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reser
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Lincoln P. Brower 
To: dplex-l at ku.edu 
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 3:29 AM
Subject: [DPLEX-L:33314] Extensive logging in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve on NASA Website & NYT


Dear Monarch colleagues


It is with great regret that my colleagues and I have to be the bearers of bad news about the Mexican Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR).


Lincoln Brower, together with remote sensing scientists Dan Slayback, and Isabel Ramirez have been using GIS (Geographic Information System) analyses to track the logging in an Ejido known as Crescencio Morales which is in the Core Zone of the MBBR.   This area is a few km south of the popular Rosario overwintering area, in the southern part of the Sierra Campanario.  According to the Presidential Decree issued in November, 2000, logging is forbidden in the Core Zone.


Two years ago, we compared 2004 and 2006 satellite images of the area and determined that there was a major logging operation inside the Core Zone, progressing up the valley towards what has been known as the Lomas de Aparicio overwintering colony area.  


We called this to the attention of PROFEPA (the federal environmental law enforcement agency).  A year later, aerial reconnaissance indicated that the logging was continuing.   Funds from private donors, including the the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation and Journey North, made it possible for us to obtain a new high resolution satellite image of the area, taken on on 23 February 2008. 


The amount of Core Zone forest that has been heavily logged is:


        160 ha between 14 March 2004 and 9 March 2006


        290 ha between 9 March 2006 and 23 February 2008


(Note:  1 ha = 2.47 acres)


Thus, the logging has intensified in the past two years. Over the four year period in this one area, a total of 450 ha (1112 acres) have been degraded. This loss amounts to more than 3% of of the entire 13,522 ha Core Zone.


We have not been able to determine if the widely disseminated news of raids and arrests of illegal loggers in the monarch butterfly region that took place in December 2007 included the individuals responsible for this particular logging.


The satellite imagery showing this damage was posted at 6PM on 6 March 2008 on NASA's Earth Observatory Site:     http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov


Here are links to the stories in the NYT and on the NASA website:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17943

(the above is a permanent link - although the story will only be the "Image of the Day" today, the above link will continue to refer to it until....)

NY Times / Dot-Earth (online):
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/the-chainsaw-and-the-butterfly/#more-188

NY Times full story (Friday print edition):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/science/earth/07butterfly.html




Tomorrow I will send you an updated highly detailed image of the logged area.




Lincoln P. Brower. 
-- 
Professor Lincoln P. Brower
Research Professor of Biology
Sweet Briar College
Sweet Briar, VA 24595
(Distinguished Service Professor of Zoology Emeritus, University of Florida)
Telephone: Office: 434-277-5065
           Fax:    434-381-6488
e-mail: brower at sbc.edu
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