Mining endangers habitat of monarch butterflies

Millions of monarch butterflies, the main tourist attraction in the town of Angangueo, Michoacán, are at risk due to the re-opening of a mine in the mountains of the region.

Mexico’s largest mining conglomerate, Grupo México, wants to use a legal loophole to revive mining in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a protected region where most industrial activity is supposed to be banned, said Felipe Martínez Meza, director of the reserve.

According to The New York Times, Mexican environmental authorities have said nothing about this issue, while local scientists say it poses a clear threat to the butterflies.

Grupo México has already gotten most of the permits it needs to re-open the mine, but is still negotiating with the Mexican government over an ore-processing plant it needs. “The company argues that it should be allowed to go forward because the mine never technically closed," Martínez said.

The proposal is supported by the Angangueo's government and by most of its residents, who will benefit from the new jobs the mine would bring.

“No mining project in Mexico has ever brought long-term benefits for local people, but has always had problems associated with natural resource destruction” said Silvestre Chávez Sánchez, leader of a community near the monarch reserve.

Grupo México’s records are not in its favor. In 2014, a huge copper mine it operates in the northern state of Sonora was the site of one of the worst environmental disasters in Mexican history. About 10 million gallons of toxic copper sulfate acid breached a dam at the mine and spilled into two rivers that supply water to more than 24,000 people.

María Isabel Ramírez, a geographer who studies monarchs at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Morelia worries that the huge volumes of water used by the mine will dry up mountain springs and threaten the viability of the oyamel fir trees where the butterflies roost.

“We have many concerns about it,” she said, noting that the firs are already stressed by climate change and illegal logging, which persists despite years of efforts to stop it.