The Butterfly in the Corn Field

The peril of the migratory monarch is a warning sign for us all

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

The migratory monarch butterfly is officially endangered. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) added this subspecies to its Red List last week. There are three species of monarch butterflies, and six subspecies of North American monarchs, but the migratory monarch is the iconic orange, black, and white-spotted butterfly we generally think of and see in most of the US (or used to). 

The decline of monarchs has been precipitous. Their population in the eastern US has decreased by over 80% since the 1990s, and their population in the western US has decreased by an estimated 99% since the 1980s. When I was growing up in various parts of the Rust Belt, monarchs were ubiquitous in the summer before their breathtaking migration south for the winter; seeing one now is a remarkable occurrence for me. 

The primary drivers of the collapse of monarchs are habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. The chemical monoculture of industrial agriculture directly kills butterflies with pesticides and eradicates the milkweed plants that females lay their eggs on and consume for food as larvae. As Raj Patel told me recently: 

What we have in our operation of agriculture at the moment is a very conscious idea that we ought to render almost everything extinct in the fields except one or two things which we quite like. The way that modern agriculture works is by annihilating all kinds of life except the life that is profitable. That profitable life looks like a monoculture.

Deforestation in Mexico for industrial agriculture and logging and in southern California for development have devastated the monarch’s winter habitats. Additionally, the extreme weather events and temperature fluctuations due to the climate crisis both directly harm the butterflies and disrupt their reproductive life cycles, which depend on precise thermoregulatory signals. 

The plight of the monarch butterfly is both a symbol and a symptom of the broader ecological crisis. The causes of the catastrophic declines in monarchs are also primary drivers of the catastrophic declines in overall biodiversity we are seeing around the world. And, as illustrated by monarchs, agriculture is foundational to these problems.

Ecologists Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer and environmental historian Angus Wright discuss the various approaches to the agriculture-conservation nexus in Nature’s Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Biodiversity Conservation and Food Sovereignty. The dominant model today is called land-sparing, which focuses on large-scale, intensified agricultural production with heavy chemical inputs in order to leave as much land undisturbed or protected as possible. There are a number of serious problems with this approach, including soil degradation, the chemical treadmill (i.e., pests evolving to evade pesticides), pesticide drift to neighboring areas, and habitat fragmentation. If we leave an area of relatively intact forest surrounded by ecological dead zones, we essentially create islands where it will be difficult for regional species populations to survive because they are unable to migrate.

Instead, Perfecto, Vandermeer, and Wright propose a radically different paradigm that takes into account this understanding of the landscape as a matrix and of food sovereignty as fundamentally intertwined with ecological sustainability. While human land use does have some inherent ecological disturbance, the degree makes a significant difference. Smaller farms that contains a diversity of crops and lack pesticides will support the ability of a variety of wildlife to thrive and pass through (or a housing development with a yard of native plants rather than a monoculture grass lawn doused in chemicals can help pollinators like monarchs). In the case of monarchs, they have such short lifespans—from egg to death in 6 to 12 weeks—they could theoretically recover quickly should we make necessary fixes like switching to biodiverse farming without pesticides and eliminating deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. Commoditized, privatized, profit-driven agriculture is in direct opposition to this approach, which is why questions of ownership and labor must be at the center of agroecology.

Environmental devastation is not a future event to avoid; like William Gibson said, it is already here, unevenly distributed. Researching and understanding this intellectually is important, but if we really pay attention, we can also notice and feel it. In just my lifetime, I have witnessed a significant decline in not only monarchs but a variety of other species like bees, toads, frogs, and snakes. The temperatures used to be lower, and wildfires and floods used to be less frequent and severe. These are alarming indicators of how the status quo is killing and alienating human and nonhuman nature alike.

This understanding is necessary but not sufficient on its own; we have to act accordingly. Fortunately, the changes necessary to protect the monarch are basically the same changes necessary to repair our food system, planet, and everything else. From Indigenous land defenders in the Amazon rainforest to peasant farmers in Ghana to environmental justice organizers in US sacrifice zones, people are resisting the churning maw of socioecological devastation all over the world. When we recognize our interconnected struggles and join in the fight together, we can start building alternative ways of relating to each other and the rest of the world in the process. To quote Arundhati Roy:

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Or if you are feeling less optimistic, listen to Mike Davis:

Fight with hope, fight without hope, but fight absolutely.

Long live the monarch.