Dear Obama, Trudeau and Peña Nieto: Act Now to Save the Monarch Butterfly

MEXICO CITY -- More than 200 scientists, writers and artists have signed a letter addressed to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in advance of the North American Leaders' Summit in Ottawa later this month. The signers urge that swift and energetic actions be taken to save the monarch butterfly from the threats that endanger its survival. All three countries must work together to mitigate the loss of the butterflies' breeding habitat and to terminate all logging and mining in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacan, Mexico. Among the many signers are Margaret Atwood, Robert F. Kennedy, J.M.G. Le Clézio (Nobel Prize), Bill McKibben, Michael Ondaatje, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Ashbery, Yann Martel and Simon Schama. The letter is reproduced in full below. A guide holds up a damaged and dying butterfly at the monarch butterfly reserve in Piedra Herrada, Mexico, on Nov. 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) President Barack Obama President Enrique Peña Nieto Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Honorable Gentlemen: At the North American Leaders' Summit held in Toluca, Mexico, on February 19, 2014, President Barack Obama, President Enrique Peña Nieto and Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the following commitment in their joint closing statement: "Our governments will establish a working group to ensure the conservation of the Monarch butterfly, a species that symbolizes our associat...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news