Community Conservation of Monarch Forest in Mexico

June, July and August were busy months for our local partner Alternare. Collaborating with scientists from the local university and funds from MBF, local communities planted 32,350 trees in 35 hectares in the Buffer Zone of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Planting trees in these areas reduces human pressure on the inner Core Zone where monarchs overwinter and encourages local people to protect and conserve the environment. A third of the seedlings came from community nurseries set up thanks to your donations. The original plan was to plant 32,000 trees in 32 hectares so we were very happy to surpass our goal!

Conservation workshops continued and during the last trimester we carried out 8 workshops to teach 62 women and 14 men how to build fuel-efficient stoves resulting in the construction of 49 stoves for individual families. We also held 4 workshops where 11 women and 54 men built 3 community cisterns and 1 for a family. Stoves decrease the demand for wood from the forest and cisterns help conserve water by collecting and storing rainwater.

Anastacio “Tacho”, a campesino (farmer) and Alternare instructor shared his thoughts about the workshops and the reforestation project:  “I love the campesino-to-campesino (farmer-to-farmer) methodology which allows us to share experiences with community members and academics. With the work we are doing managing and conserving the forest I see a future full of hope with lots of butterflies.”

The fall migration is underway and we will have to wait to compare with last year but many people across the breeding range reported seeing more monarchs this year. Like Anastacio, we are full of hope and envision monarchs migrating well into the future. Thank you for being our partners and sharing our vision!

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Summer is near and we are ready to plant nearly 32,000 trees in 32 hectares in the Buffer Zone of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve! Thanks to your generous support, our local partner Alternare produced enough seedlings in community and school nurseries to provide a remarkable one third of the trees necessary to reforest the area. Planting will start at the end of June. We are very excited to begin! Planting trees in these key areas will help reduce human pressure on the older mature forests in the Core Zone of the Reserve and protect the inner core where monarchs spend the winter.

During the last trimester your donations funded 7 workshops to teach 65 women and 15 men how to build fuel-efficient stoves and resulted in the construction of 50 stoves (47 for individual families, 2 for an entire community and 1 for a school).  Our focus on water continues and we held a workshop to train 14 instructors to build cisterns that capture rain water. They shared the techniques they learned in an additional workshop and as a result, two new community cisterns were built. Amazing work making a real change in the daily life of these very special people – all because of your generosity!

All the details about our projects, the actions being taken by citizens and governments to support the monarchs and suggestions on what you can do to help are in our Spring-Summer 2014 Newsletter found on our website (see link below).

As spring continues to unfold monarchs are flying north and we are eagerly welcoming them, delighted to see their arrival in breeding areas across the northern range. Together we are making a difference and contributing to the survival of their spectacular migration. Your continued support as our conservation partner means a lot to us and helps make all of this possible

THANK YOU!

Reports are sent to donors every three months but if you do not wish to receive them click on the unsubscribe link in this email or login to your GlobalGiving account and change your email preferences.

Links:

• MBF Spring-Summer 2014 Newsletter
• Alternare