About US
IN THE WORDS OF ESTELA ROMERO…
For centuries, a certain species of butterflies appearing in the sky in late October-early November, represented to our Indigenous people the souls of their beloved dead relatives visiting them as they did great preparations to set their altars on the “Day of the Dead,” an ancestral tradition kept for generations to let them know they would be never forgotten.
“They look like Bright Orange Jewels, they are also The Daughters of the Sun, they come with the Solstice, fertilize the soil, pollinate the flowers, and then leave in the Equinox.”
Nowadays, we still keep our ancestral Indigenous beliefs about them and celebrate their fantastic arrival each November 1st and 2nd, during our great festivities of the “Day of the Dead.”
Meanwhile, it had already been taking decades for foreign researchers to track the species, Canadian Doctor Fred Urquhart followed by US American Doctors Lincoln Brower and William Calvert, who finally found out where in the remote Sierra Madre mountains in central México the fantastic and mysterious migrants overwintered.
I was then a 10-year-old child when my parents, running a small local hotel in town, hosted Doctor Lincoln and Doctor Calvert who were assisted by a local family up in the mountains to whom my parents made liable that cold and snowy winter, and which experience would be repeated each season for the next 45 years as Doctor Lincoln, Doctor Chip Taylor, and Doctor Karen Oberhauser traveled back and forth each season to make research on Monarchs and their habitat bringing their colleagues and disciples from Canadian, US and Mexican organizations and universities at these unique Oyamel fir forests, ancestral winter home for the exceptional species.
Up to then, most of our local families ignored over generations that our ancestral Oyamel Fir forests had been the unique winter refuge, ideal habitat, and completion of their year’s life-cycle for the survival of the extraordinary species.
Migratory Monarch butterflies keep nowadays as one of the most important indicators of the equilibrium of ecosystems along their migration corridors from their breeding lands in Canada and the United States down to their overwintering Oyamel fir forests in Central México.
However, involving local schools and citizen young generations making them even more aware of the importance of the conservation of their own unique local natural reserve, resulted in extreme importance.
For 29 years now, thousands of students and teachers have been sharing knowledge and unknown extraordinary aspects that characterize Monarchs’ habitats through the Symbolic Monarch Migration Project.
Over all these years, a large school and citizen community in the north have created thousands of Ambassador paper butterflies graciously designed and illustrated with conservation activities; they ship them as the real migration south to México occurs.
Mexican children living with their families and attending school throughout the overwintering forests of Monarchs at over 10 thousand feet elevation, receive, through these colorful butterflies, knowledge about Monarchs’ breeding instars and inspire themselves seeing how a large community in the north is doing conservation and habitat restoration at their homes, schools, and countryside areas to support Monarchs.
While delivering your awesome Ambassadors, the Symbolic Monarch Migration program increases the knowledge of our local students with additional, unfamiliar, and surprising aspects of their local ecosystem and hibernating forests to our resilient Monarchs, letting them know how mushrooms, protected animal species, pollinators, moths, water, trees, wild plants, and flowers are all vital components to the exclusive micro-climate and delicate equilibrium Monarchs rely on.
This accomplished, our students write and decorate their letters of response fully understanding and proudly showing why their hometown is a unique natural reserve in the world, telling how they inherit, through anecdotes, experiences, and local culture ancestral knowledge from their grandparents of which they shall be proud heirs as they learn how to be the best Ejidatarios and guardians of these unique fir forests in the world.
A LEGACY IN EDUCATION
Contributing to the education of two generations now, local Mexican grandparents and parents who received their lessons on conservation and paper Ambassador butterflies nearly 30 years ago, bring up and transmit to their children today how they as local families impact Monarchs’ habitat directly.
BOOK DONATION
The Monarchs Across Georgia Mexico Book Project is a separate and main complement program to the Symbolic Monarch Migration exchange bringing hundreds of books and didactic materials on nature conservation thanks to generous donations that enrich the libraries of our rural schools in the mountains.
THANKS FOR YOUR GREAT PARTICIPATION
The Symbolic Monarch Migration is now reaching its 30th anniversary as the only educational program delivering lessons on conservation each winter, reaching about 40 local schools and over 2,000 students scattered throughout Monarchs’ overwintering reserve in México.
Most of our schools do not have internet or computers, so all didactic material and each Ambassador paper butterfly mean an encouraging, inspiring, and invaluable sign of friendship, connection, and awareness of this tri-national commitment and sistership across borders and generations for the assurance of the vital natural cycle of our extraordinary, resilient creatures.
Your participation in the Symbolic Monarch Migration Project and donations to the Monarchs Across Georgia México Book Project provide invaluable resources for our youth.