Monarch Butterfly Biosphere, Mexico City

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere, Mexico City The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site found in Mexico that is home to millions of monarch butterflies.

This reserve is a hub for conservation and dedicated to preserving the monarch butterfly and its ecosystem. Together with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), we're supporting the conservation efforts of these endangered insects and protecting biodiversity. The majority of the overwintering monarch butterflies from eastern North America are located in this region. These sites were identified by researchers in 1975. In the 1980s and 2000s, presidential orders designated these privately owned areas as a federal reserve. The area was recognized as a Biosphere Reserve in 1980 and later designated a World Heritage Site in 2008. The reserve primarily consists of rural landscapes. Administrators of the reserve remain vigilant regarding the harmful impacts of illegal logging and tourism. Efforts to conserve the environment occasionally clash with the interests of local farmers, community landowners, private property owners, and indigenous populations. Exceptional Universal Significance The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve World Heritage property protects key overwintering sites for the monarch butterfly. The overwintering concentration of butterflies in the property is a superlative natural phenomenon. The millions of monarch butterflies that return to the property every year bend tree branches by their weight, fill the sky when they take flight, and make a sound like light rain with the beating of their wings. Witnessing this unique phenomenon is an exceptional experience of nature. Criterion (vii): The overwintering concentration of the monarch butterfly in the property is the most dramatic manifestation of the phenomenon of insect migration. Up to a billion monarch butterflies return annually, from breeding areas as far away as Canada, to land in close-packed clusters within 14 overwintering colonies in the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico. The property protects 8 of these colonies and an estimated 70% of the total overwintering population of the monarch butterfly's eastern population. Integrity The property includes more than half of the overwintering colonies of the monarch butterfly's eastern population. They provide a good sample of the areas that are essential for maintaining this superlative natural phenomenon. The maintenance of the standing forest and the microclimates that they create is the key management requirement; thus, any threat to the forests is of utmost concern. Illegal logging is a known threat to the property with potential direct impacts on its Outstanding Universal Value. Public use has been increasing, and the levels of visitation and infrastructure provided require careful control both in relation to impacts on the ecosystem and the quality of experience provided by the property to visitors. Due to its migratory nature, the maintenance of the overwintering phenomenon also requires attention to the conservation of the monarch butterfly by those countries through which it travels during its life cycle. Requirements for Protection and Management The principal focus of protection and management should be to prevent illegal logging in the property.

Priorities to achieve this include concerted planning and action between all relevant federal, state, and local agencies and working with local communities on environmental protection and the provision of alternative livelihoods to logging. As the overwintering phenomenon is a significant attractor to visitors, management also needs to be directed to achieving sustainable public use of the property. This should respect the quality of the visitor experience and promote benefit-sharing mechanisms for local communities as an incentive to enhance their support for the conservation of the property. Continued investment in coordinated continent-wide management of the migratory phenomenon is a further important dimension of site management. Achieving all of these priorities requires the provision of adequate and sustained institutional and financial support.
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