The monarch butterfly and Donald Trump's demagogic promises

One of Donald Trump's campaign promises was to stop undocumented (“ illegal ”) immigration : mass deportations, building a “big, beautiful” wall and conditioning the flow of billions of dollars in remittances if Mexico didn’t pay for it. Also trade tariffs, canceling visas and abandoning the North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA ) if Mexico did not accept renegotiating it.

I don´t know if Mr.Trump will fulfill his promises. He said that he started building the wall , and a few days ago announced trade tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from Mexico, Canada, and other countries. What I do know is that high above the human border millions of tiny little insects weighing only half a gram will continue to fly back and forth—without a visa—to connect millions of U.S. and Mexican citizens: the “small, beautiful” monarch butterfly , the queen of migrants , the quintessential undocumented .

Every winter the monarchs fly thousands of miles from Canada and the United States to the oyamel forests in Michoacán and Estado de Mexico . It is the second longest migration of the million species of insects known. And today it is threatened, not by demagogic speeches, but by the loss of the habitat largely due to unsustainable agricultural practices in the U.S. Illegal logging in the Mexican sanctuaries and changing weather patterns in all three countries aggravate the problem.

In the wintering grounds Mexico has done its bit to protect the species, but not without difficulties or sacrifices. Of the 1800 acres deforested in 2005-2007 in the monarch reserves, illegal logging went down to less than two acres in 2017 thanks to enforcement by federal authorities, payments for environmental services to the local communities, and financial support from Mexican philanthropists and businesses to create local jobs. In 2000 Mexico created a large reserve to protect the hibernation colonies and forbade forest exploitation in 17 of the 38 communities who own 33 thousand acres of the core zone of the reserve.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government did not reciprocate these urgent conservation measures. The monarch population decreased dramatically in just 20 years: from 44 acres of forest occupied in 1996-1997 to only 6 acres in 2017-2018. The area of forest occupied by butterflies is an indirect indicator of their abundance. It is not just monarchs: the two nations share another 450 threatened species of flora and fauna, and thus the responsibility to protect them for present and future generations.

Animal migrations

transcend political boundaries and cultures. Conserving migratory species requires protecting feeding, reproductive and migrating habitat within different territories and, although individual strategies are each country's responsibility, international cooperation is essential . Protecting the abundance of migrants is the key to safeguarding the ecological importance of migration since, as the number of migrants decline, so too do many of the most important services associated with them. But, it’s not just about losing an enigmatic butterfly and the environmental services associated with its pollination of wild flowering plants; it’s about losing vital human connections too: the stories, folklore, and admiration that have connected communities across thousands of miles for ages. Likewise, when walls are built between countries, all those ties are lost, and the good neighborhood spirit erodes.

Loss of wild insects seriously impacts ecosystems, agriculture, and genetic diversity. 80% of wild plants depend on insects for their pollination. In the U.S. alone, environmental services provided by insects, many of them migratory, represent an estimated annual value of USD$ 57 billion .

NAFTA

was born 26 years ago, and three countries chose the monarch butterfly as the emblem for their cooperation. If that treaty disappears, would the tri-national efforts to protect the monarch migration also evaporate? The sublime contemplation of millions of orange marbled butterflies fluttering through the blue sky or perching on the trees depends on cooperation among three countries. Going alone is not an option.