Tag Archives: ecology

Monarch Butterfly In Decline, Possibly Due to Climate Change and Herbicide Use

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pollinator-friendly gardeningMonarch butterflies are said to be a thermometer of climate change in North America. Each year, between November and March, monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles from the United States and Canada, and over-winter in Mexico. There, they densely cover the trees in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve and are a major tourist attraction. But that may be changing, along with our climate.

According to Mexico’s annual report on monarch populations, which was just released, the number of hectares occupied by the butterflies in the 2012-2013 season dropped by fifty-nine percent compared to the year before. The area occupied, and its density, is used as an indication of the size of the population. At barely 1.19 hectares (2.94 acres) occupied, this year’s was the smallest monarch population in almost two decades.

The report says that the probable causes for the decline in butterflies during the migration and hibernation are the reduction in milkweed availability in feeding and reproduction sites throughout the United States and Canada, and extreme weather events affecting the reproductive generations in the United States during spring and summer 2012.

Butterflies are not just lovely harbingers of Spring; they are important to our food supply. Along with hummingbirds and bees (which are facing their own population declines, probably due to disease and pesticide use), butterflies are part of a large group of species known as “pollinators.” Their role of pollinating flowering plants, including trees, is critical to humans because an estimated third of our food supply, as well as some of our fibers and medicines, depends on them.

One of the things that we can do to help is to populate our gardens with native plants that attract and feed these pollinators. Here’s an article from Natural Life Magazine that will provide you with assistance as you plan this year’s pollinator-friendly garden. And also check out this informative article about goldenrod; this much-maligned plant is not a weed or an allergen, and it is often the last flower visited by nectar-sipping butterflies before they migrate.

Trees

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trees“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.” ~William Blake

Trees are known as the lungs of the our planet. As well as mitigating climate change, they provide shelter for wildlife, shade our homes and public spaces, provide us with enlightenment and inspiration, and are even a great place to perch a house.

Here’s an article from Natural Life Magazine’s archives with more about “The Wonderful World of Trees and Treehugging.”

Connections

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Natural Life Magazine is unique among the current crop of green living magazines and websites because we’re all about connections, about how the various topics we cover are interwoven into the tapestry of life: parenting, health, economy, leisure, work, education, housing.

Those interconnections are why I always chuckle when a new public opinion poll proclaims that people have changed their top priorities from, for instance, the environment to health care, as I heard this past week. The solutions to problems in these areas are inevitably linked, as we often illustrate in Natural Life. Although that would seem obvious, it’s not always so for many people.

Cancer, with its myriad environmental causes, is a good illustration of that connection. And it comes to mind because this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On my personal blog, I’ve written about what I dubbed “pinkwashing.” Pinkwashing is an extensionof “greenwashing” - used to describe the activities of companies that position themselves as leaders in the struggle to eradicate breast cancer while engaging in practices that may be contributing to the disease. Those practices include using a variety of carcinogens in their products and/or polluting our air, water, and soil with carcinogens that are by-products of the manufacturing process. The cosmetic industry, which supports breast cancer organizations as a way of marketing its products, is one example, but there are many others. The result is that people get sick and our environment gets polluted while corporate shareholders get rich. And if we made these companies clean up their acts, fewer people would get sick and less money would be spent on health care.

So it’s hard to justify a greater sense of urgency over fixing problems with either one of the environment, health care, or the economy. Even though environmental issues seem remote and therefore not urgent, while health care and jobs seem to affect us on a more immediate level, their solutions are interconnected. As Thoreau said, “What is the use of a house if you don’t have a decent planet to put it on?”