Mexico vows to protect butterfly, rare desert oasis - Reuters

Mexico vows to protect butterfly, rare desert oasis

REUTERS

4:49 p.m. February 24, 2007

MEXICO CITY – Mexico will enforce a “zero tolerance” policy
against logging that threatens to wipe out the monarch butterfly
and will act to stop a rare and ancient oasis from drying up,
President Felipe Calderón said Saturday.

Calderón said soldiers will be deployed to clamp down on illegal
logging in a protected forest where monarch butterflies winter
after migrating thousands of miles from Canada and the United
States.

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He said 10 million trees would be planted in the butterfly reserve,
part of a goal to plant 250 million trees across Mexico in 2007.

Calderón said soldiers and federal police would patrol the zone
looking for loggers, while the number of personnel in the zone
and in other wildlife sanctuaries would increase by 15 percent.

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