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The pine forests of southern Michoacan are both rich and poor: poor in the level of per capita income, and rich in timber. An old story, which is none-the-less worth exploring, if for no other reason than that what is going on there has a direct effect on most of you who are reading this article; and a common story in third world countries, and therefore a paradigm for so much else that seems intractable in the long list of environmental crises facing us all.

Last year, we took a road trip through much of central Mexico. One of the goals of the sojourn was to see the Monarcas, nesting in the trees high up in the mountains near Morelia, the state capital of Michoacan. Several friends had already been there, and had come back with glowing reports of a mystical experience communing with swarms of the little creatures. Diana has a turtle on her calling card: no chance we were going to pass this one by. We chose the Rosarita site, one of several in the area.

Going to see the Monarcas is not for the weak of knee or lung. Once you get to the parking lot (itself the terminus of a bumpy road twisting more or less straight up for miles) you must negotiate your way through the swarms of kids offering to watch your car, show you to the gateway, sell you souvenirs, etc., and achieve the entrance to the park itself, some distance uphill from the parking lot. Once you are safely within the confines of the park (the kids can't come in), the climb really begins.

The park employs guides, and you must be accompanied by one. There is no obligation to pay your guide, although we did tip ours a small amount. We followed a very patient young man up a trail so steep that in places there were steps cut into the hillside. Fortunately, there are lots of benches placed along the path for those (like me) who needed them. We climbed for an hour, and estimated that we were about 9,000 feet up.

Our guide spoke at length about the problems of preserving the very special oyamel pine tree that the Monarch uses for its breeding and nesting during the long winter months. He explained that the reason that we had to have a guide, and could not wander off the marked trail, is the delicate state of the habitat, which is easily disturbed by human visitors. At the end of the trail, on a cool and cloudy day, the nesting area was obscured by mist, and the butterflies were not very active, but every once in a while, a ray of sunlight would break through, and small swarms would take a brief turn around the area. It was dead quiet, for we had started early, and were the only tourists there. Very ethereal. Still, I am not much of a "nature lover" (dare I confess?), and a half hour of this was just enough for me.

On the way down, our guide talked about how Mexican and foreign environmentalists were working hard to convince the local people not to cut down the forest for wood, so that the monarchs would have sufficient breeding grounds; and how this is difficult, even in places that have been purchased by the government and outside preservationists and declared off limits to cutting. He told us that the plan was to make a better life for the local people by creating a tourist industry, as opposed to the cut-it-and-its-gone quick bucks now being earned. I asked him if the butterflies nested outside the parks. Yes, he said, and that is exactly the problem: tourists come here, see what looks like all the butterflies in the world (millions in our little area alone), and think that nothing more needs to be done. But in fact, what the tourists see is merely a small fraction of the habitat, and higher up, out of sight, the cutting goes on.

The government is trying to reach a compromise with the indigenous in the higher altitudes. They are given quotas: cut so much (enough, it is thought, to both maintain the habitat and provide a reasonable livelihood) and no more. But the indigenous are under pressure from mill owners and shippers, who offer what looks to them like a lot of money; and as close as a quarter mile above the Rosarita site, the destruction is "fierce" according to a recent report by a prominent environmental watchdog group.

Furthermore, the laws covering the quotas are being enforced by the notoriously corrupt state police, so you can forget about any relief from that end, even supposing that the state government could ever come up with enough money to hire enough enforcement personnel.

Some environmentalist groups are urging that more preserves be made, and that is being resisted by the local indigenous groups, who rightly point out that such a move could easily leave them without sufficient land to feed themselves, which would sooner or later mean migration off sacred ancestral lands.

Meanwhile, the cutting goes on, and the Mexican government is calling on their northern neighbors - for whom they are the living incubator for all those lovely monarchs that we see all summer - to pitch in and help. I think a good start would be to stop allowing any further shipments of oyamel pine to cross the border, and to put the screws on the Japanese to do likewise. It might not stop the destruction, but it couldn't hurt...

In the meantime, when you see Monarchs in your neighborhoods all across North America, remember the tiny, specialized, and shrinking neighborhood that they came from, and to which they must return to breed a new generation, year after year. Maybe, if you put your mind to it, you'll be able to figure out a solution that will resolve this problem in a way that will benefit everyone. If you do, don't tell me, tell someone who counts...

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