Unfortunately it’s becoming a rare experience to see a monarch. The species’ populations have suffered significant declines due to climate change, disease, pesticide use, and the loss of breeding and overwintering habitats.
One of the spaces left for them is the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacán, Mexico, where butterflies from the eastern United States spend their winters. The reserve is threatened by deforestation for avocado plantations that provide most avocados to U.S grocery stores.
If you’re like me, avocados are a large part of your daily life. Used in everything from guacamole to sandwiches, these healthy fat sources show up in most of my meals. I’m fortunate to have neighbors with organic avocado trees, and their seasonal bounties make my family’s food more delicious.
But most Americans buy avocados at the grocery store. Last year the United States consumed 3 billion pounds of them, 90% of which are imported from Mexico. To meet the skyrocketing U.S. demand, avocado plantations have been gobbling up Mexican forests where monarch butterflies spend the winter.
In the past decade more than 10 football fields per day of forests have been cleared to grow avocados, including nearly 2,400 acres in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Research from Climate Rights International has linked avocados from deforested land to importers that supply major U.S. grocery stores.
Thanks to pressure from the Center for Biological Diversity and our allies, there’s now an innovative program to prevent avocados grown on newly deforested land from reaching U.S. markets. The Pro-Forest Agriculture program, run by the independent nonprofit Guardián Forestal, uses satellite data to screen orchards for environmental violations. Since the program’s inception, it has blocked 2,900 orchards tied to deforestation from entering certified supply chains.
But U.S. grocery stores must adopt corporate policies to stop deforestation by requiring all suppliers to use the PFA program. More than 90% of Mexican avocado exports to the United States are now PFA certified. But as long as any avocados remain outside the system, Mexico's forests are vulnerable.
In June the Center sent a letter to leading U.S. grocery retailers asking them to publicly commit to adopting the PFA certification program. We built a coalition of more than 50 environmental, climate, and food organizations urging all major U.S. grocery stores to protect monarchs, forests, and communities by adopting the PFA program.
The strongest commitment so far comes from Sprouts, the popular health-conscious grocer that in April launched a strong deforestation-free avocado sourcing policy, committing publicly to Pro-Forest Avocado-certified avocados and creating a model for other retailers.
Thanks to a decade of work by the Center and partners, these butterflies have been proposed for protection under the Endangered Species Act — but they can’t survive without their overwintering grounds. In addition to deforestation within the reserve, the loss of surrounding forests compounded by climate change and drought — worsened by the enormous amount of water used to grow avocados — threaten the integrity of this unique, irreplaceable habitat.
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