Volunteers Watch Over Mexico's Monarchs' Reserves Mexico News Daily
go to original October 7, 2016

Watchmen warn authorities of any suspicious activity while they’re on patrol and they also have the role of replanting areas affected by illegal tree cutting. (Luis Castillo)

More than 1,500 volunteers are helping to keep illegal loggers from felling trees in the national protected area of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in the states of México and Michoacán.

In order to protect the forests and the monarch butterflies’ winter habitat, the federal government has implemented permanent surveillance by the National Gendarmerie and Army and Navy personnel who coordinate their monitoring with 1,650 community watchmen belonging to 85 Environmental Surveillance Committees.

Sabino Marín Reyes, 61, is one of those watchmen and three times a week he walks for two hours to reach the area, where he monitors activities in the forest in the hope that his presence will discourage loggers.

Marín says area residents fight the logging because they don’t want to lose more trees but there has been some danger.

Ten years ago he was injured in a gunfight with loggers and had to spend two months in hospital.

Watchmen like Marín warn authorities of any suspicious activity while they’re on patrol and they also have the role of replanting areas affected by illegal tree cutting.

Read the rest at Mexico News Daily

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