Symbiotic salvage operation
There is a quiet revolution sweeping across the forests of Mexico. The movement seeks to save the endangered Monarch butterfly. Even as millions of these butterflies spend their winters in Mexico yet the government has failed to protect their forest habitat from illegal logging. The 200,000-odd largely impoverished people, who live in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, are responsible for felling trees in the region. Driven by their needs, these people clear the land to grow crops, build their homes and for fuel. Now activists have succeeded in doing what the Mexican government could not. They have motivated the farmers to adopt sustainable living techniques in the name of the butterfly. Farmers are being taught to build with brick rather than wood, to farm without chemical fertilisers and to rotate crops for increased land productivity. While the butterfly's habitat is being saved by such techniques, the needs of the local people are also being met.