Special Edition: Celebrating 10 years of Monarch Conservation in Mexico Monarch Butterfly Fund c/o Karen Oberhauser 4038 Cherokee Drive Madison WI 53711 monarchconservation.org Issue XIX Winter 2019 Board of Directors Tribute to Lincoln Brower Dr. Alfonso Alonso On November 22, 2019, the tourist season opened at the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary in Angangueo, Donald Davis Michoacán. A memorial tribute to Dr. Lincoln Brower was part of this opening event. Silvano Eli Moreno Gail Morris Aureoles, Governor of Michoacán, Hilda Dominguez, Municipal President of Angangueo, and Dr. Karen Oberhauser Carmelo Martínez, Ejido Leader, unveiled a plaque that remembers Lincoln for “his passion for Dr. Isabel Ramírez monarchs, nature, science and conservation.” Importantly, Governor Silvano commemorated the Dr. O. R. “Chip” Taylor (Emeritus) fact that it was in this very sanctuary where Lincoln first saw a butterfly colony and called it “Site Dr. Ernest Williams Alpha”. MBF Board member, Isabel Ramírez, read a beautiful thank you message from Lincoln’s wife, Linda Fink, and gave a brief overview of Lincoln’s work including the important role he played Forestry Advisors in the conservation of this site. To see more photos and read more details about this tribute to Dr. Ek del Val Gortari Lincoln, please visit our website’s home page at (www.monarchconservation.org). Dr. Diego Pérez Salicrup Dr. Cuauhtémoc Saénz Romero árdenas Forestry Consultant Jesse Moreno C Edgar Photos: Editor Mónica Missrie Isabel Ramírez reading overview of Lincoln Plaque in honor of Lincoln Brower Local people attending the ceremony Inside this issue: Almost 23,000 trees planted in 2019! During the summer of 2019, six communities from the monarch region joined Alternare to plant Lincoln Brower Memorial 1 22,905 trees at 20 sites covering a total of 21.5 hectares within the buffer zone of the Monarch Summer 2019 Reforestation 1 Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR). The reforestation was carried out thanks to the enthusiastic Reforestation in S. Chincua 2 participation of 736 children, women, and men who produced and transported pines, oaks, ashes, and alders from their community and school nurseries. Additionally, they prepared the soil and Vegetation Map 2 planted the trees with native species of the region, increasing the likelihood of survival, which Mural in Sierra Chincua 2 contributes to the recovery of the structure and diversity of the forests in the area. Restoration Evaluation 2 Alternare continues to monitor natural reforestations and regenerations. In 2018, Alternare Assisted Migration 3 evaluated reforestations performed from 2015-2017 and reported a survival rate of 86%. Alternare Update 3 Participatory action by communities is fundamental to the success of reforestation, since within Monarch Network 4 the MBBR, more than 80% of forest lands are communal and ejido properties, whose population are mainly Mazahuas, and the role of its inhabitants is decisive for natural resources management Monarch Joint Venture 4 and use. Since we started ten years ago, MBF has supported reforestation activities; over eight Brower Award Winners 4-5years (2011-2018), together with Alternare and the communities, we have reforested 183.06 Monarch Challenge 5 hectares with 207,463 trees made possible by your donations! Global Giving 5 MBF Mission/ Donations 6 Photos: Alternare, A.C. Alternare, Photos: @ mbfmonarchs www.facebook.com/monarchbutterflyfund Group of participants in reforestation Instructor demonstrating planting techniques Page 2 Monarch Butterfly Fund 10,000 Oyamel Trees Planted In order to contribute to the recovery of forests on priority areas for overwintering monarch butterflies in Sierra Chincua, the communities of Jesús Nazareno, Cerro Prieto, Calabozo Fracc.1, and Hervidero y Plancha reforested a total of 11.5 hectares within their ejidos and Reforestation part of state and federal properties with 10,000 oyamels using the assisted migration strategy. MBF considering climate has supported assisted migration experiments for five years, and this project is an example of the change is a great example of local important role of collaboration between the communities and scientists showing the practical communities applications of scientific research. As part of this project, reforested sites for 2012-2019 (map at incorporating scientific https://tinyurl.com/rzwyouz) on priority sites were identified, and a map was generated to assess research in their reforestation at one of the main overwintering sites located in Sierra Chincua. With this projects and planning information a model of the forest structure of the reforested sites will be developed. All this will for the future help us understand better the health of the forests to suggest improved management strategies. Vegetation and Land Cover Map In 2019, MBF funded the update and publication of the “Monarch Cartographic Series: Vegetation and Land Cover 2018”, and it is now online on UNAM’s Center for Research in Environmental Geography (CIGA)’s website (https://tinyurl.com/vdglzsn). Developed by board member Isabel Ramírez and her collaborators Jairo G. López-Sánchez and Sara Barrasa, this update is the second part of the Monarch Cartographic Series of which Volume 1 was published a decade ago, and both are part of a long-term monitoring project of land cover in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR) and its surrounding areas. The monitoring allows us to identify the magnitude and location of changes in land use over time to suggest better practices for the monarch region. Mural in Sierra Chincua As part of the opening ceremonies of the 2019-2020 tourist season, a mural was inaugurated at Sierra Chincua showing its biological and cultural diversity. This project, the result of MBF's collaboration with Ejido Cerro Prieto and other local partners (the MBBR, the Monarch Fund, and UNAM’s Center for Research in Environmental Geography [CIGA]), depicts diverse species of plants, fungi, birds, mammals and other insects that are part of the monarch butterfly’s habitat. It also shows the daily activities of people in the local community as well as some threats to butterflies. The mural is surrounded by a series of iron and cement sculptures symbolizing the árdenas migratory cycle of butterflies. The mural was painted by Maestro Enrique Téllez Hernández, originally from Angangueo, Michoacán. This space transforms what was a garbage incinerator into a cultural and tourist structure that makes the community proud and represents an interest in forest C Edgar Photo: activities that are the least harmful to nature. árdenas Side view of the mural Photos: Edgar C Edgar Photos: Assistants to the ceremony in front of the mural Full frontal view of the mural Evaluation of Restoration MBF supported Salvador Huitrón, a student of environmental sciences at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, in his assessment of ecological restoration activities in the monarch butterfly overwintering areas during 2012-2017. Salvador concluded his research by making several recommendations for better forest management including conservation, restoration, and protection actions that can reverse forest degradation in the priority micro watersheds of the overwintering sites. His recommendations include keeping the historical records database updated, using the data on environmental disturbances to improve restoration techniques, and incorporating the participation of forest owners in future conservation projects, among others. For a summary of Salvador's work and some of the maps he compiled, visit our website at https://tinyurl.com/t5lvsaq. Issue XIX Page 3 Assisted Migration Dr. Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero and his colleagues continue their experiments in assisted migration at Ejido La Mesa, which involve planting seedlings of oyamels (Abies religiosa) rescued from forests that have experienced natural regeneration at a higher altitude than where the seeds originated to compensate for the projected effects of climate change. Planting is carried out under the protective shadow of local shrubs that serve as nurse plants (mostly Bacharis conferta), and the survival rate remains encouraging. After two years of planting in the field survival has resulted in 94% survivorship at the Los Ailes site. Conversely, when planted in open fields, survival is only 8%, thus failing completely. The original idea of rescuing oyamel seedlings from moss-covered sites came from local farmers such as Mr. Francisco Ramírez-Cruz from Ejido La Mesa. The production of seedlings in a community nursery at 3000 m altitude was a key factor for success Vargas - because it induced the hardening of seedlings, which is much needed to withstand the harsh temperatures of the planting sites at the higher 3360 m altitude. Without local participation, these ecological restoration projects would be almost impossible. The results of these experiments were published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (https://tinyurl.com/vhwcypx) and Nature (https:// tinyurl.com/vqwkctx) as well as the Los Angeles Times (https://tinyurl.com/y49lylfa). Among the Llano Grande, La Mesa 3400m Photos: Ana Laura Cruzado Cruzado Ana Laura Photos: experiments performed, Dr. Sáenz and his students (Esmeralda Navarro-Mirada and others) also compared the stress levels of oyamel seedlings in and without the shade of nurse plants, and determined a stress index indicating a one as representing the best status and six representing dead seedlings. The figure below shows three examples of the stress index.