Canada, Mexico and the United States are cooperating to protect and conserve the monarch butterfly, which environment ministers of the three countries say has become a symbol of North America's shared environment.
Each year millions of monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles back and forth from wintering grounds in Mexico to their breeding locations in the eastern United States and Canada.
In the fall, the orange and black monarchs return to just 12 forested mountaintops in central Mexico, where they form colonies in which millions of butterflies cluster on the trunks and branches of the trees. Despite the creation of protected areas and reserves, illegal logging has been shrinking this unique, critical monarch habitat.
Although the monarch butterfly, is not in danger of extinction, its unique multigenerational migration spanning the continent is considered an endangered biological phenomenon.
Monarchs have up to four generations each summer, each one traveling a little further north than the last. The last generation of the year migrates south.
Because monarchs depend upon a wide range of habitats in Canada, Mexico and the United States, conservation of the migratory monarchs requires trilateral cooperation due to threats to the butterflies' habitats throughout the flyway.
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~ Mark O'Lalor
