On January 7, 2024, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, governor of the state of Michoacán, made a one million dollar contribution to the Monarch Butterfly Conservation Fund, called the Monarch Fund for short. The Monarch Fund is a trust fund, established in Mexico in 2000, that specifically supports forest conservation and environmental services in the core zone of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR). This trust fund is managed by the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature (FMCN) in collaboration with WWF Mexico through the Neovolcanic Axis Conservation Fund-FOCEN. Creation of this trust fund was spearheaded by former World Wildlife Fund (WWF) director, Guillermo Castilleja (retired), Lincoln Brower and Mónica Missrie, and supported by government authorities, communities, and civil society organizations.
Currently, the Monarch Fund has 7.5 million dollars, and with the earned interest, pays 33 landowners in the monarch region (70% from Michoacán) in areas conserved within the core zone (13,552 hectares) of the MBBR. Almost 8,000 ejidatarios and people from local communities can benefit from this new contribution.
MBF is proud to work in concert with the Monarch Fund. In 2020, MBF supported the development of a video commemorating the 20 years of the Monarch Fund (coming soon). More details on how the Monarch Fund was created can be found by clicking here. You can also get an overview of the Monarch Fund on the Monarch Networks’s StoryMap. A 2005 assessment with the lessons learned while developing the fund is available here.