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 Travel & Outdoors | November 2007 
Mexico Looks to Sustain Butterfly Tourism
 Holiday Extras Ltd
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| (Jim Hulsebus)
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The Mexican government plans to invest over $4 million in a reserve that will protect local butterfly populations and boost tourism.
Mexico plans to invest some $4.6 million (£2.2 million) in the protection of monarch butterflies, with planned improvements to an existing wildlife reserve and efforts to curb illegal logging.
Millions of butterflies migrate to the mountains of central Mexico every year, where they cover trees and bushes and regularly attract sightseers.
The new investment, announced by president Felipe Calderon, will partly be used for additional equipment and advertising for the existing monarch butterfly biosphere reserve, which covers a 124,000-acre area of trees and mountains.
It is hoped that, as well as protecting the butterflies, the initiative will help the local economy by ensuring that tourists continue to visit the area.
President Calderon said: "It is possible to take care of the environment and at the same time promote development."
The population of the orange- and black-winged monarch butterfly is considered so important in Mexico that officials can sometimes be seen standing alongside main roads, slowing cars to ensure they do not hit a butterfly flying across the road.
Lincoln Brower, a professor of zoology at the University of Florida, told the Associated Press that the Mexican butterfly nesting grounds are "the Mecca of the whole insect world". |
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