US Announces Plan to Save Monarch Butterfly

273

February 10, 2015

Published in Veja
(Brazil) on 10 February 2015
by (link to original link to original)

Translated from by Erica Conceição. Edited by Laurence Bouvard.

The monarchy butterfly is in an alarming situation. Since 1996, millions of them have disappeared in North America. It's estimated that the insects’ populations have decreased from 1 billion to approximately 30 million currently. The data was published by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday.

The decrease is due to the application of herbicides in milkweed plants, which work as hospitals for these butterflies, in addition to acting as their home and source of food. Every spring these animals migrate from Mexico to Canada taking six generations to carry out the journey.

The U.S. government has announced that $3.2 million will be sent to save the insects. From this, $2 million will be used in projects to increase the number of milkweed plants on the main migration routes of the butterflies.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating a request made by the Center for Biological Diversity to list the monarch butterfly as a threatened species in need of special protection to survive.

Other Insects

Bees have also had casualties in recent times due to a phenomenon known as colony collapse syndrome, not yet fully explained. It is believed that it may be related to the neonicotinoid pesticide type, absorbed by all parts of the plants. Suspicions have led the European Union to ban, from July 2013, the use of these pesticides in some cultures for a period of two years, despite protests from farmers and chemical and agrifood multinationals.

A borboleta-monarca vive uma situação alarmante: desde 1996, 970 milhões delas desapareceram na América do Norte. Estima-se que as populações desse inseto tenham diminuído de um bilhão para cerca de 30 milhões atualmente. O dado foi divulgado pelo Serviço Americano de Pesca e Vida Selvagem (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) na segunda-feira.

A queda é decorrente da aplicação de herbicidas nas plantas asclépias, que funcionam como maternidades para essas borboletas, além de sua casa e fonte de alimentos. Toda primavera, esses animais fazem uma migração do México para o Canadá que leva seis gerações para ser concluída.

O governo americano anunciou que 3,2 milhões de dólares serão destinados a salvar os insetos. Deles, 2 milhões de dólares serão empregados em projetos para aumentar o número de asclépias nas principais rotas de migração das borboletas.

O Serviço Americano de Pesca e Vida Selvagem está avaliando uma petição feita pelo Centro de Diversidade Biológica para listar a borboleta-monarca como uma espécie ameaçada que necessita de proteção especial para sobreviver.

Outros insetos — As abelhas também vêm sofrendo baixas nos últimos tempos, devido a um fenômeno conhecido como síndrome do colapso da colônia, ainda não totalmente explicado. Acredita-se que ele possa ter relação com pesticidas do tipo neonicotinoide, absorvidos por todas as partes das plantas. As suspeitas levaram a União Europeia a banir, a partir de julho de 2013, o uso desses pesticidas em algumas culturas por um período de dois anos, apesar dos protestos de produtores agrícolas e de multinacionais químicas e agroalimentícias.

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