Logging in Mexico

Logging in the monarch's overwintering habitat has also lead the species to decline. The area is threatened to forest degradation by both legal and illegal logging, land conversion for agricultural fields, and climate change can all negatively affect the oyamel firs in which the monarch butterflies overwinter in. The oyamel firs protects the butterflies over the winter from precipitation and really cold temperatures.

Logging in Mexico has taken away trees that the monarchs need. To help with this problem, in 1996 a Mexican nurseryman by the name of Jose Luis Alvarez Alcala was starting to grow tree seedlings to help with the reforestation effort. A lot of logging was happening because local needed to get wood for cooking, burning, and building homes and fences. They planted some of the seedlings in the actual forest, and they also talked to some farmers about planting trees on their land for the locals to use as they needed. In 2008, they estimated that this project has planted almost 4 million new trees!

Some cool facts about the monarchs and their Mexico habitat:
After traveling up to 2,500 miles, the butterflies arrive in Mexico on or close to November 2, which is Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead (a festival to remember loved ones who have passed on). 
Both events have happened together for so long, many local people close to the forest believe that the butterflies carry with them the returning souls of their ancestors.   
Their winter habitat in Mexico wasn't know to the outside world until the winter of 1975-76 when it was discovered by two Canadian scientists.

Overwintering Habitat Loss. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2016, from http://monarchjointventure.org/threats/overwintering-habitat-loss/

Sill, S. (n.d.). Reforesting Michoacán | American Forests. Retrieved April 18, 2016, from https://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/reforesting-michoacan/