Mexico targets loggers in battle over butterflies
With assault rifles over their shoulders and body armor strapped to their chests, Roberto Paleo and his 17 officers are among the world’s most heavily armed park rangers. Yet they guard one of nature’s most delicate creatures – the monarch butterfly.
The rangers say they need the weapons to protect the winter nesting grounds of millions of orange and black winged butterflies from armed gangs of illegal loggers in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.
The monarchs are not listed as endangered, but scientists say deforestation could threaten their existence.
Although a single butterfly can spend its entire life in the United States or Mexico, they are born with the instinct to migrate. Most do – traveling in the millions from Canada to a mountainous area in central Mexico each year to carpet fir trees that provide shelter, an aesthetic and scientific wonder that attracts about 200,000 visitors annually.
More: mercurynews.com
More monarch butterflies may go to Mexico
As many as 200 million Monarch butterflies may migrate to Mexico this year a nearly tenfold increase over 2004, when unfavourable weather, pollution and deforestation caused a drastic decline in the population, environmental officials said on Tuesday.
Last year, fewer than 23 million butterflies survived long enough to leave habitats in the United States and Canada for sanctuaries in the state of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, and neighbouring Michoacan state. That was at least 75 per cent lower than expected, but should usher in a Monarch resurgence this year, officials said.
After especially cold weather
Crew plans to tag along when butterflies migrate to Mexico
The annual arrival of millions of Monarch butterflies from the forests of eastern Canada to the central Mexican mountains for the winter is an aesthetic and scientific wonder. And this year, they won't be flying alone.
A crew plans to accompany the butterflies on their 3,415-mile-journey while riding in an oversized hang-glider painted with giant versions of the orange, black and white wings of the Monarch.
Their aim is to raise awareness for the need to better conserve the Monarchs' fragile habitats. Illegal logging is thinning and toppling the fir forests west
NAFTA environmental commission finds Mexico slow to respond to illicit logging
Mexican authorities were sometimes slow to respond to complaints by Indians about illegal logging on their lands, and enforcement was hampered by mountainous terrain, language barriers and limited personnel, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation found in a report issued Monday.
The CEC, set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement – which includes Mexico, the United States and Canada – issued the report in response to Indians' complaints that loggers were clear-cutting pine forests in northern Mexico.
It was the latest chapter in a quarter-century battle that has seen
Mexico ready for butterfly invasion
As many as 200 million monarch butterflies may migrate to Mexico this year -- a nearly tenfold increase over 2004, when unfavorable weather, pollution and deforestation caused a drastic decline in the population, environmental officials said Tuesday.
Last year, fewer than 23 million butterflies survived long enough to leave habitats in the United States and Canada for sanctuaries in the state of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, and neighboring Michoacan state.
That was at least 75 percent lower than expected, but should usher in a monarch resurgence this year, officials said.
Draws 200,000 tourists
"In the past, very low
Migrating butterflies linger on way to Mexico
Monarch butterflies are flapping their way through Missouri this fall, heading south for the winter. But while scientists say Missouri has probably seen the peak migration for this season, the little voyagers seem to be sticking around a bit longer.
“Most of the migration is over in this area by the fourth of October, but there are unusually large numbers of late monarchs this year due to the warm weather and the strong winds from the southwest,†said Chip Taylor, an entomologist with the University of Kansas research program Monarch Watch.
From Canada to Mexico,
Iberdrola targets further 1 bln usd investment in Mexico until 2010
Iberdrola SA said it plans to invest a further 1 bln usd in Mexico until 2010, following investments of 2.8 bln over the past six years, bringing the total to 3.8 bln usd over 1999-2010.
In a statement, Iberdrola quoted chairman Inigo de Oriol as saying that the company will continue bidding for contracts from the Mexican state-owned electricity utility CFE over the next few years.
De Oriol was speaking with President Vicente Fox at the opening of two new combined cycle power plants in Mexico.
More: forbes.com
Mexico sees bigger butterfly migration this year
Wildlife officials say good weather should bring a surge in the number of monarch butterflies migrating to Mexico this year, after last year's cold resulted in the lowest numbers in more than a decade.
Each fall tens of millions of the bright orange and black butterflies begin arriving in central Mexico's Michoacan state to winter in the fir trees after a 3,000-mile (4,800-km) trek from Canada that fascinates biologists.
At El Rosario reserve, one of five butterfly sanctuaries in Mexico, officials expect the insects to occupy far more forest this year than the 2.2 hectares (5.4
Mexico’s PRI faces a bitter battle over leadership
A bitter battle for succession is threatening to split Mexico's former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as its governing council meets on Wednesday to vote on a new leader.
The party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before the victory of Vicente Fox, the president, in 2000, still has more members of Congress and more state governors than any other, and the rupture could possibly affect its chances of regaining the presidency next year.
The next party president will have the power to set the rules for the PRI primary, which could affect Roberto
Katrina Targets Gulf of Mexico Oil
As hurricane Katrina gathered speed and strength to level 5, major oil companies have announnced production shut-downs in the Gulf of Mexico region. The region produces 1.5 million barrles of oil per day and 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The potential landfall on Monday morning near New Orleans may cause severe weather conditions in and aroud the city.
Katrina, the fourth hurricane in a season of eleven Atlantic coast tropical activities, is on its way as Category 5 hurricane to somewhere close to New Orleans, Louisiana. Katrina, hurricane category one, managed to down power
Mexico's Madrazo Wins Court Battle Against Party Foe Gordillo
Mexican presidential hopeful Roberto Madrazo won a legal battle against a party foe as the nation's electoral court confirmed one of his allies as president of his Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico's biggest.
The electoral court yesterday dismissed a motion by Elba Esther Gordillo, the party's executive secretary, to oust Madrazo's ally from the party's presidency, according to a statement on the court's Web site. The decision is final.
Gordillo had argued before the court that by party statutes she should be made party president, succeeding Madrazo after he stepped down to
