RZ Mexico 07 171
Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.
The Monarch butterfly is the best known of all migratory butterflies, traveling across the Americas to overwinter in Mexico. In 2000, Mexico established a reserve called the Biosphere of the Monarch Butterfly, a 56 hectare protected area. Despite its protected status, conservation is complex because so many people live within the reserve.
Mexican Fellow Cristopher Lopez Paniagua, sponsored by the US Forest Service, is designing an ecotourism plan for one of the ejidos, a community owned forestland called Cerro Prieto, in the municipality of Angangueo in Michoacan State. In January Cristopher spent several weeks meeting with ejido members and conducting visitor surveys and was joined for one week by WFC Education Director Rick Zenn.
Angangueo is the second most popular Monarch site to visit. Most Cerro Prieto ejido members were loggers until the creation of the reserve in 1996. Now they must struggle to find enough ecotourism dollars to make ends meet. They are hampered by national versus local politics, low skill levels (they have limited training in tourism or English), and lack of funding.
In the most popular sanctuary as many as 4000 tourists visit per day, putting enormous pressure on the monarch’s habitat. There is therefore need to create alternative sources of employment and productive projects for these communities so that they will not deplete the monarch’s natural habitat.
Cristopher’s trip gave him first-hand experience with the needs of ejido members, as well as visitor wants and needs. He will spend the remainder of his project developing training sessions for ejido members on topics of interpretation, customer service skills, and basic English lessons. He will also design trail signs and interpretive flip-guides to help tourists better understand the reserve. Cristopher was well received by ejido members, who lamented that so many foreign aid groups and national government programs are initiated but the benefits never reach down to their level.
