Help preserve the Monarch Butterfly Preserve in Mexico

Ellen Sharp talks to Monarch in Eastern Iowa members, October 2016.

Below is a letter from our friend, Dr. Ellen Sharp, who visited Iowa and talked to Monarchs in Eastern Iowa on October 21, 2016. She is Project Director of Butterflies and Their People, a non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve the butterfly sanctuary in Mexico by creating jobs for local people in forest and monarch butterfly conservation. 

Ellen has a BA from Brown University and a PhD in anthropology from UCLA. She turned her attention to the plight of monarch butterflies after first visiting the butterfly roost at Cerro Pelón in 2011, when she met Joel Moreno Rojas. She now lives full time in his hometown of Macheros, Mexico, at the entry of Cerro Pelón Monarch Butterfly Preserve, where they run JM Butterfly B&B together.

Ellen is asking for our help in getting the word out to help save the trees that monarchs need to overwinter in Mexico.  Please give if you are able!

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March 29, 2018

Dear Monarch Watchers,

The monarchs have left the Cerro Pelon Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, taking what work there was in butterfly tourism along with them. One day after they left, the sound of chain saws was already echoing out of the forest and around the valley. Our neighbors are already resorting to illegal logging to feed their families.

Thanks to the support of the Monarch Butterfly Fund, three local people now have alternative employment as full-time forest arborists on Cerro Pelon. Some of our recent guests have started a Go Fund Me campaign to raise $6,000 to hire, train and equip an additional arborist so that we can increase the presence of paid personnel in the forest and pull one more family out of poverty.

I’m writing you to ask for your help to get the word out about this campaign—consider contributing and sharing www.gofundme.com/ butterflies-and-their-people with your networks.

Illegal loggers only get around $15-20 USD per tree; it doesn’t take much to pay poachers to protect the forest instead of pilfering it.

You can read more about the project here: https:// butterfliesandtheirpeople.org/

Thank you for your consideration and all of your efforts on behalf of our monarchs!

Ellen Sharp & Joel Moreno Rojas

Macheros, Mexico

MEI and MPP meeting

Monarchs in Eastern Iowa members and Muscatine Pollinator Project members met in a "Meet 'n Greet" session on Sunday, March 4th at the East Side Recycling Center in Iowa City.  The purpose of the meeting was to become more familiar with each other's groups and share information.  It was a very informative meeting!

Muscatine Pollinator Project (MPP) is quite an active group.  Among the things they are involved with are teaming with Muscatine Community College greenhouse to grow pollinator plants, working with schools, planting pollinator gardens and developing a 16-acre pollinator prairie in Muscatine, One of their members is a bee man and the group has partnered with a local brewery to produce "Pollinator Ale" out of the honey, from which they receive a portion of the proceeds.  You can read more about the MPP at this Google search link.

Besides MEI members, we also had representatives from The Nature Conservancy-Muscatine Co., a Johnson County Master Gardener associated with Iowa City Monarchs, Naturalists from Muscatine County and Iowa County, and the Environmental Services Manager from Bridgestone Bandag (which has a pollinator garden at their Learning Center).

A good group!

Below are some photos from the meeting, taken by Monarch in Eastern Iowa's volunteer photographer, Larry Long.

Organizers Barb and Patty from MEI, and Dave Cooney from MPP.

We had a good turnout!

Kelly Guilbeau (right), from Milkweed Matters tells about

distributing milkweed seedballs during the RAGBRAI ride.

If you wish to ride with Milkweed Matters this year, click the link!

John Koch, Muscatine Water Resources Manger,

displays signs they had made. 

Mom and son attended because this young boy is

very interested in butterflies.  He is holding a collection

passed down to him from his grandfather.

At the end of the meeting two women who had gone

to Mancheros, Mexico to the J&M Butterfly B&B

presented photos of their adventure to see the

overwintering monarch butterflies clustered in the trees.