(AP Photo/Zoological Society of San Diego, Mike Wallace) In this image released by the Zoological Society of San Diego, Mike Wallace, shows a California condor egg produced by 7-year-old female No. 217 and 6-year-old male No. 261, in their cliff side nest inside the Sierra San Pedro de Martir National Park in Baja California, Mexico, in March 2007. This condor egg in Mexico is the first time since at least the 1930s a California condor has produced offspring, biologists at the Zoological Society of San Diego announced Monday April 2, 2007. This is the first egg laid in Baja California since the California Condor Recovery Program reintroduced this species in 2002.
SAN DIEGO (Map, News) - An egg found in an abandoned eagle nest could herald the return of the California condor to Mexico, which hasn't had a breeding population of the iconic giant of the skies for about 75 years.
"This is a momentous occasion," Dr. Mike Wallace of the Zoological Society of San Diego said Monday. "We're all excited."
The California condor, once on the brink of extinction, is the largest bird in North America with a wingspan of almost 10 feet.
Wallace and colleagues found the egg March 25 on a cliff in the Sierra San Pedro de Martir National Park, located in the arid interior of the Baja California peninsula more than 100 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Wallace climbed to the nest and took photographs and measurements of the egg, shining a bright light through the shell to determine that the egg was 45 to 50 days old. Condor eggs incubate for 57 days, meaning the chick could hatch any day. There was also a chance the egg was dead, but Wallace said he did not smell any sulfur and the parent condors were still tending to it.
"We are all sitting on pins and needles waiting to see where the situation is going," said Wallace, who works for the zoological society's center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species. The society also runs the San Diego Zoo and its wild animal park.
The California condor was once widespread, swooping above the western United States, parts of Canada and Baja California.
A type of vulture, the condor scavenges dead fish and animals. As coastal population of seals and otters declined, so too did the bird. The use of poison to kill California's grizzly bears in the 1800s also devastated their numbers and lead shot remains a potential source of poison. Hunting, egg collecting and power cables were also blamed for hurting the creature's numbers.
Only 22 California condors were left by the 1980s, and the last documented sighting in Mexico was in the 1930s, Wallace said.
Thanks to a captive-breeding program, numbers recovered to a worldwide total of about 280. More than 100 of these fly free in the skies above parts of California, Nevada and Utah. Working with the Mexican government, biologists reintroduced captive-bred birds to Mexico in 2002.
Condors don't reproduce until they are several years old, Wallace said. The 7-year-old female that laid the egg in Mexico, known as Condor 217, was born at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Another species of condor, found in the Andes, is also threatened with extinction, but its numbers are in the thousands, Wallace said.
Several organizations have been working together to boost condor numbers under the Condor Recovery Program, which was founded in 1982 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Among them are several Mexican groups, the Los Angeles Zoo, Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey and Oregon Zoo.
U.S. demand for corn pushes prices up for farmers, shoppers
By Marla Dickerson
Los Angeles Times
SAN SALVADOR EL SECO, Mexico - High corn prices are wreaking havoc on Mexico's inflation rate and forcing shoppers to pay more for eggs, milk and tortillas. But they're a godsend to farmers such as Victor Manuel Amador Luna.
With world corn prices riding high on strong demand from U.S. ethanol producers, Amador is looking to expand production on his farm about 125 miles east of Mexico City in the state of Puebla. He planted most of his 222 acres with corn this year and is looking to buy more land.
"I've never seen prices this high in my lifetime," said Amador, 79, his smile wide, like the crack in the dusty windshield of his Chevy pickup.
How long the bonanza will last is anyone's guess. What's clear is that America's thirst for corn-based ethanol is being felt around the globe, delivering fatter profits for grain farmers but higher costs for livestock producers, food processors and consumers.
The United States is the world's No. 1 corn producer and exporter, shipping an estimated 2.2 billion bushels to international buyers last year. Most nations can't compete with government-subsidized U.S. corn, which countries such as Mexico have come to rely on to fatten their hogs, chickens and cattle.
But with 110 ethanol plants in the United States snapping up hundreds of millions of bushels and an additional 63 refineries slated to come on-line in the next 18 months, some foreign farmers are betting that America will soon have less of the grain available to export. Agricultural economists say Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico are among the nations planting more corn to pick up the slack in their own domestic markets and perhaps score some export sales as well.
In addition, Mexico is gearing up to supply its own ethanol industry. Lawmakers are contemplating legislation that would require the state-owned oil company Pemex to oxygenate its gasoline with corn-based ethanol. Two plants are under construction in the rural state of Sinaloa, where officials are looking to create employment and provide farmers with a reliable outlet for their harvests.
Agriculture has been a constant source of trade friction between Mexico and the United States since the launch of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. Although overall farm trade between the neighbors has exploded and Mexico has narrowed its agricultural trade gap, Mexican producers have complained about fat U.S. government subsidies in commodities such as corn, beans and milk powder, which they say makes it impossible for them to compete in those critical staples.
Concerns eased: But high corn prices are easing some concerns for now, and putting more money in the pockets of rural dwellers such as Aldo Cruz Matillas, an 18-year-old farmhand in Puebla state. Local growers are paying him almost $11 a day to help with harvest, a 20 percent pay raise over last year.
On a recent afternoon, the teenager guided a John Deere tractor through a freshly harvested cornfield while his co-workers walked alongside the wagon hitched to the back. The grain is now so valuable that the men were scouring the ground for any stray ears missed by the combine that had passed through earlier that day. Cruz said his older brothers migrated to the United States. But, if he can make a living, he said he would rather stay put.
"There is a lot more employment now," he said. "More hope."
Indeed, Puebla is experiencing a surge of interest in corn production. About 5,300 farmers have joined a government-sponsored program to boost Mexico's supplies of yellow corn, according to agronomist Adelfo Salazar Mendoza, coordinator with the state's Council of Corn Producers.
White vs. yellow: Most corn grown in Mexico is the white variety geared for human consumption in tortillas and corn meal. It historically has fetched a premium over yellow corn, which is used for animal feed and ethanol. Mexico last year imported nearly 4 million metric tons of yellow corn from the United States. That's more than three times the amount produced domestically, according to Mexican government figures.
But Puebla livestock farmers concerned about food security persuaded the state government four years ago to help them begin developing reliable sources of local production. Officials provided small grain farmers with up to 25 acres' worth of free seed, subsidized fertilizer and technical assistance. The government also helped finance a communal pool of tractors, combines, planters and other tools to boost productivity. Livestock producers secured corn at prices below market thanks to the government subsidy provided to corn farmers.
Salazar said the incentives last year resulted in the cultivation of 37,000 acres of yellow corn in Puebla. He said he expected that acreage to double this year.
"We are children of corn," said Salazar, noting the grain's cultural and historical significance to Mexico. "We can't let this industry disappear."
Livestock support: That's good news for Raniero Ludoviko de la Vega, head of purchasing for a Puebla company that produces hogs, sheep and eggs. The operation has imported most of its yellow corn from the United States and saw prices spike more than 60 percent last year. De la Vega said the local corn bought by his company was less expensive and of higher quality than the American stuff.
Although prices have hurt his company's profitability, he said he was pleased to see Mexican farmers responding to the opportunity.
"I would rather the money stay in Mexico," he said. "We need to support and revitalize our farm sector."
Shoppers stressed: A major concern for Mexico right now is the effect corn prices are having on consumers. Mexico ended 2006 with a higher-than-expected inflation rate of 4.05 percent, driven largely by rising food costs. Prices for meat, eggs and milk have all increased, in part because of animal feed costs.
The biggest outcry is over the price of tortillas, with prices in some places up more than 60 percent in recent weeks.
Times staff writer Cecilia Sanchez contributed to this report.
Under US-Mexico border, a squalid life for tunnel refugees
'Another world' as crime and filth coexist in passages
By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times | December 3, 2006
NOGALES, Mexico -- One mile deep into the drafty tunnel under this hilly frontier city, a flashlight beam cuts through the darkness and illuminates a yellow line painted on the concrete wall: the US-Mexico border.
Just beyond the boundary a graffiti message believed to have been scrawled by US law enforcement warns intruders: "USA Tunnel Rats. Este lugar es de nosotros" -- This place is ours.
Not exactly.
Inside the largest-known tunnels on the border -- two passages that make up an enormous drainage system linking Nogales, Mexico, with Nogales, Ariz. -- migrants stumble blindly through toxic puddles and duck bats. Methamphetamine-addicted assailants lurk. And young men working as drug mules lug burlap sacks filled with contraband.
There are shootouts and rapes. Rising floodwaters sweep people to their deaths. US Border Patrol agents pursue smugglers in frenzied chases, insults and threats echoing as they go. And tangles of rebar metal -- points sharpened by smugglers -- gouge people who get too close to some walls.
"It's another world down there," said Pat Thompson, a police detective in Nogales, Ariz. "You don't know what to expect."
As the United States prepares to fence much of the border above ground, the situation below could grow increasingly chaotic. Authorities have discovered dozens of illegal tunnels in recent years, including a nearly half-mile passage connecting Tijuana with San Diego.
Illegal immigrants have breached drainage systems all the way along the border, from El Paso, Texas, to San Diego. Most of them are of the crawl-through, claustrophobia-inducing variety that prevent large incursions.
The Nogales tunnels, by comparison, are superhighways.
Once open waterways, today they stretch for miles under the traffic-clogged streets of both cities, bending and zigzagging roughly parallel to each other.
In the smaller one, called the Morley Tunnel, an ankle-high stream of raw sewage and chemical runoff from factories in Mexico usually flows. The neighboring Grand Tunnel is up to 15 feet high and wide enough to fit a Humvee. Dozens of illegal immigrants can travel through it at one time.
Above ground, fences, sensors, and stadium lighting clearly separate the two cities. Underground, they remain linked of necessity by the system built decades ago to channel torrential rains.
The tunnels doubled as smuggling routes from the beginning. For many years, gangs of children took control of the passages. Nogales police once encountered Mexican soldiers on the US side, prompting a brief, tense standoff.
In recent years, the US Border Patrol has had some success stemming the underground flow of illegal immigrants and drugs by installing heavy steel doors, surveillance cameras, and sensors.
But when heavy rains this summer triggered floodwaters that tore down the gates, smugglers ripped down the cameras and shattered the lights and sirens that are used to discourage incursions -- and the chaotic human flow resumed.
From July through October, agents apprehended 1,704 illegal immigrants in the tunnels, a nearly five-fold increase from the previous six months.
Agents seized more than a ton of marijuana from tunnel arrests during the same period. In July, bandits raped two women from Oaxaca, Mexico, in the tunnels on the Mexican side.
This summer, five people are believed to have drowned after being caught in floodwater. Two others fell into a sewage drain and were carried nine miles before being discovered alive in a shaft near a sewage treatment plant.
Imelda Guevara Lopez, 17, said she survived by never letting go of her friend's hand as she struggled to keep her head above the flow of raw sewage. Lopez, whose backside was shredded by the walls, told workers at a migrant shelter in Mexico that she would never again enter the underground.
"I prefer working in the fields and being poor but alive," said Lopez, who went home to Hidalgo, according to an account in a Mexican newspaper.
Patrolling the tunnels is a nightmare for law enforcement on both sides of the border, mainly US Border Patrol agents and Grupo Beta, Mexico's safety force.
Teams of US agents enter the Grand Tunnel daily, sometimes toting M-4 assault rifles. But their high-tech night vision goggles are rendered almost useless in the tunnel's black-hole-like reaches.
The darkness is so thick that migrants sometimes cross within an arm's length of US agents without noticing. That is the agents' preferred tactic: lying in wait, letting groups pass before cutting off any escape back to Mexico.
If the migrants manage to evade agents in the tunnels, another huge challenge remains: getting out. People pop up from manholes into the middle of busy streets, sometimes stopping traffic. Curb storm drains are often too small, so smugglers use 20-ton hydraulic jacks to pry them open so people can squeeze through.
The new president faces powerful drug cartels, massive monopolies and duopolies, and a fractured government, among many other challenges.
By Jorge G. Castañeda, Jorge G. Castañeda is a former foreign minister of Mexico and a professor of politics and Latin American studies at New York University. December 3, 2006
MEXICO'S SEEMINGLY endless electoral ordeal has finally concluded: Felipe Calderon took office as president on Friday, albeit under hardly auspicious circumstances. Constitutional order has prevailed — though just barely — despite the onslaught of a strident and deeply wounded left-wing opposition bent on impeding Calderon's inauguration and a bitter, resentful Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) silently hoping and conspiring for the new president's failure.
The bad news for Calderon is that the telenovela that debuted on election day, July 2, is only the beginning. The toughest challenges lie ahead for him now that he has moved into Los Pinos (as the presidential spread on the edge of Chapultepec Park is called).
The conventional wisdom in Mexico doesn't fully appreciate Calderon's predicament. If Vicente Fox's term was largely a self-inflicted failure — as is broadly believed — then it would be relatively easy for the new administration to improve on this dismal past. So Calderon would set about imposing respect for the rule of law and the country's institutions, using political skills acquired as a party leader and legislator to broker deals with the PRI for the structural economic reforms Mexico needs to grow at roughly twice the rate of the Fox years (a meager 2% a year), downsizing expectations for dealing with Washington on immigration and cracking down on corruption that has remained rampant over the last six years.
That wouldn't prove so daunting. Alas, this simplistic narrative is not only inaccurate, it is devastatingly misleading.
Fox's six years in office, coupled with the four last years of former President Ernesto Zedillo's mandate, were a milestone. Not since the 1960s had Mexico enjoyed 10 consecutive years of economic stability, low inflation, low interest rates, a stable currency and constant, if mediocre, growth. For the first time, mortgages, automobile loans and consumer credit became available to the lower middle class: This year more homes were built and sold, and more cars were bought, than ever before. Fox can be criticized for indulging disruptive political protesters and an extremist opposition, but what's more important is that he did not resort to the bloody repression for which most of his predecessors came to be known. And as his foreign minister for a time, I am proud that Fox dragged Mexico out of its archaic foreign policy cocoon and put immigration and human rights front and center on Mexico's international agenda.
As far as Fox's inability to build coalitions with other parties (his National Action Party, or PAN, did not control a majority in the Congress, and still doesn't), perhaps it was their fault, not his. Even before taking office, Calderon was unable to accomplish his very first goal: building the coalition government — at least with the PRI — that he repeatedly proclaimed as the solution to the political gridlock that has cursed Mexico since 1997. There are advantages to having a uniform and disciplined, though probably disposable, PAN Cabinet, even one made up largely of lackluster, mostly unknown and untested archconservatives from the heartland, but this is not what Calderon said he wanted. Similarly, no deal was reached with the leftist opposition regarding the inauguration ceremony — thus the chaotic, depressing scenes of Mexican congressmen fighting it out at the podium of their chamber over the course of the last week.
Moreover, local conflicts like those in the southern state of Oaxaca have not been quickly resolved under Fox, either politically or through the use of force. It seems that Mexico's problems are more intractable than just not having Fox to "kick around anymore."
Actually, they may be more simple and complex at the same time. Mexico experienced an abrupt economic opening under former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), a belated but successful political opening under Zedillo (1994-2000) and, at long last, a true rotation in power thanks to Fox (2000-2006). But all of these historical transformations took place while leaving the essence of the old PRI-inspired machinery intact: The foundations of the system (which political scientists would call "corporativist" because that system managed to subordinate all sectors of society — the party, business, labor, the church and so on under its control), created in the 1930s, remain untouched. They still represent the most formidable obstacles to Mexico's growth and success.
The first pillar of this structure is the public and private economic monopolies that dominate the country. The oil (Pemex) and electric power (Federal Electricity Commission) firms owned by the state are untainted by competition; the private virtual monopolies in telecommunications (Telmex), television networks (Televisa), cement (Cemex), bread and tortilla manufacturing (Bimbo and Maseca, respectively) and banking (Banamex/Citigroup and Bancomer/Banco de Bilbao) face only tepid competition at home, thanks to their cozy relationship with the state. Prices, supply, service and quality suffer as a consequence, and today these monopolies are stronger than ever.
The second pillar is formed by the unions that have controlled the Mexican labor movement since the 1930s. They were granted immense leverage in workplaces, tremendous resources and political power. The power of such organizations as the teachers union (the largest in Latin America), the oil workers union (the richest in Latin America) and the Social Security employees union (that has thwarted any attempt at pension or health reform for years) remains largely unchecked to this day. These unions obtained all their perks in exchange for 70 years of support for the PRI. They retain those perks, though they no longer owe any support to the government.
The third pillar is the political monopoly. For 70 years, one party had a complete lock on Mexican politics; now three parties do, and no one else can enter the political arena or have access to the taxpayer subsidies handed out to these parties (to the tune of more than half a billion dollars last year) without their consent. In Mexico, Joe Lieberman would not have been reelected to the Senate because, among other reasons, independent candidates are not allowed to run. The parties write their own antitrust legislation, vote their own subsidies and choose their own elected officials, who are just ratified at the polls.
Calderon's daunting assignment is to take on the pillars of the PRI's ancient regime, which have outlasted that party's seven-decade control of the presidency. His administration needs to liberate the union movement, upgrade and enforce antitrust laws to break up private monopolies and allow new competitors — even to the old public monopolies — to enter the marketplace. The barriers of entry into the marketplace of political ideas must also come down.
Can Calderon achieve all this? On one hand, the question might appear nonsensical. Given his weakness at the start, and the virulence and insidiousness of his opposition, taking on more enemies, including some of the powers that be that backed him, seems absurd and impossible. On the other hand, doing so may be the only way to strengthen his presidency. Moreover, his supporters can hardly break with him and join the Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador insurrection or the PRI silent conspiracy. They have nowhere else to go. Nor, indeed, does Calderon. He has to move forward and take up some formidable interests that are standing in the way of Mexico's future. It will not be easy.
Mexico is a country that is, all at once, pre-modern, modern, anti-modern and postmodern. This situation can have certain advantages, as those who appreciate the cultural mosaic of Mexico know, but there are times when it can be not just difficult but explosive.
Last Monday (the anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which lasted 10 years and cost a million lives) modern politics in Mexico was silenced by an alliance between the pre-modern and the anti-modern in a postmodern spectacle that could lead to widespread social revolt and that has impeded the country's democratic progress. Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador -- the charismatic caudillo who has come to believe himself Mexico's messiah incarnate -- gathered his faithful for his anointment as the "legitimate president" of Mexico.
Even though he has lost much support because of his post-election behavior, L?pez Obrador still controls several organizations that have shown themselves capable of paralyzing a part of Mexico City with demonstrations and sit-ins. They consist of state employee unions, peddlers of the informal economic sector, unofficial taxi drivers and hundreds of radical groups.
Where do they get their money? Until now the budgetary sources of the Federal District of Mexico City have sufficed, managed at the discretion of L?pez Obrador's PRD (Democratic Revolutionary Party), just as it was taught by its elder brother, the old ruling PRI. These groups mingle with anti-modern militant movements, which aren't exactly guerrilla forces but do represent a kind of "soft revolution."
It is a mobilization of salaried contingents that not only will harass incoming President Felipe Calder?n and his cabinet but will also try to disrupt everyday life for inhabitants of the country's most sensitive regions. This will be under the guise of a supposed "peaceful resistance" against the "usurpation" that many people still think took place in July's razor-thin election but that L?pez Obrador and his party (who won impressive victories in the legislature) were unable to prove in the courts.
This soft revolution is an enemy of democratic life and may even make dead letters of laws eventually passed in the National Congress. If the PRI (the third force but the counterbalance on the scales of Congress) decides to support Calder?n and his National Action Party (PAN) in the reforms that the country needs to create jobs, L?pez Obrador's militants will still be able to boycott them by taking to the streets to block traffic and disrupt business. In its extreme version, it might try to replicate what's been happening over the past six months in Oaxaca, where a revolutionary group of teachers, infiltrated by the residual guerrilla forces that have always existed in the mountains of southeastern Mexico, has been reenacting on a small scale the scripts of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.
There remains the possibility of the restricted, legitimate use of public force, but this is an extremely delicate point in Mexico because of the trauma of the student massacre of 1968. Thus the goal of L?pez Obrador's movement will be to make the country ungovernable and to achieve the eventual resignation of Felipe Calder?n. It's unlikely that he'll succeed, but not impossible.
Part of the solution to this delicate situation lies in the hands of President Calder?n. If he quickly shows himself to be the leader that his predecessor, Vicente Fox, neither could nor wanted to be, Calderon will be able to remove the shadow of illegitimacy and establish the foundation for a stable government. He needs to surround himself with a capable cabinet that will carry out measures in the most sensitive areas (security, employment, corruption). Calder?n seems to be an intelligent politician, has parliamentary experience and has his priorities straight. But I'm convinced that much-needed concord depends on more than him.
In this regard, the left bears the greatest responsibility, especially that part of the left with ties to the PRD in the Federal District government and various state governments, the representatives and senators of Congress, and a multitude of journalists, academics and intellectuals. These people need to distance themselves from the caudillo and modernize their ideological platform along the lines of European social democracy.
There are precedents for this kind of transformation. In Spain, when Felipe Gonz?lez came to power in 1978, he renounced Marxist dogma and embraced the market economy, which was a condition for the country's eventual entry into the European Community and the impressive development that it has since achieved. In Chile, socialism evolved toward modern ideas and has presided over a period of impressive growth and social well-being. These are two very successful reforms, both of them counter to the anachronistic "21st-century socialism" of Hugo Ch?vez and Fidel Castro. But in both Spain and Chile, the process of maturing took place after civil wars and dictatorships. It would be a tragedy if Mexico had to go through that hell for its left to modernize. Unfortunately, at this moment at least, the possibility of such a transformation seems remote. I once said that the last Marxist in history would die at a Latin American university. I still believe it.
The postmodern spectacle that took place in the historical center of Mexico City is bizarre and ominous but also very serious. This is not a British "shadow cabinet," in which individual opposition politicians scrutinize various parts of the party in power. L?pez Obrador has said power belongs to him alone, in the name of the people. He is serious about his plans: to force the resignation of Calder?n and take power by proclamation, that ritual out of the Mexican past. The perfect date would be 2010, the 100th anniversary of the revolution.
If this nightmarish scenario actually happened, the implications for the United States could be ominous too: a stream of refugees that would dwarf the current illegal migration, pushed by the collapsing Mexican economy, capital flight and spreading Oaxaca-style violence.
The United States would do well to remember that there is a country, not on the Persian Gulf but on the Gulf of Mexico, that has taken a giant step toward political maturity by adopting a democratic system in the space of just one generation -- and has done so practically without historical experience. And it would do well to find tangible, direct ways to support Mexico's economy, just as the European Union supported Spain. Build bridges, not walls. Winning Mexico for democracy is the same thing as winning democracy for all of Latin America -- no small triumph in today's world and the world to come.
Enrique Krauze is the author of "Mexico: Biography of Power" and editor of the magazine Letras Libres. This article was translated by Natasha Wimmer.
Carstens Says Mexico to Focus on Housing, Tourism, Construction
By Thomas Black
Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Agustin Carstens, head of the economic team of Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon, said Mexico's government will focus on housing, tourism and construction to create jobs and boost economic growth.
Carstens, 48, said public and private investment in housing, tourism and construction of bridges, roads and other infrastructure will help Mexico soften the blow from a slowdown in the U.S., which purchases about 80 percent of Mexico's exports.
``We're going to give priority to certain sectors that rapidly create jobs and that strengthen the internal economy, giving more economic independence from the U.S. growth rate,'' Carstens, previously deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said in a speech to businessmen in Monterrey.
Calderon appointed Carstens to map out Mexico's economic program for the next six years. Carstens has become the leading candidate for the post of finance minister. Calderon, who won the July 2 presidential election by less than 0.6 percentage point, will take office on Dec. 1.
The federal government alone can't increase jobs and economic growth, Carstens said.
``Our fundamental job is to create favorable conditions so the society, and in particular the private sector, can contribute to this growth process,'' he said.
Under Calderon, the government will continue to spend on anti-poverty programs, Carstens said. The programs, which grew under President Vicente Fox, include direct subsidy payments and free health care for Mexico's poorest.
The programs should be designed ``to create incentive and avoid creating dependence,'' Carstens said.
The U.S. economy expanded at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the slowest in more than three years, a Commerce Department report showed last week.
To contact the reporters on this story: Thomas Black in Monterrey, Mexico at tblack@bloomberg.net
OTTAWA -- The Bush administration's decision to build a security fence along its border with Mexico is like the construction of the Berlin Wall that separated communist East Germany from West Germany for decades, and will lead to an increase in deaths among those trying to sneak into the United States, according to Mexico's president-elect, Felipe Calderon.
Calderon was in Ottawa on Thursday meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and seeking his support in presenting opposition to the U.S. plan on the grounds it risks hurting the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Harper reiterated his often-stated position additional security measures along America's Canada and U.S. borders risk damaging the close relationship between the countries.
But his comments were eclipsed by the aggressive Mexican politician, who will taking over from outgoing President Vicente Fox on Dec. 1.
U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law Thursday a bill that would erect a fence more than 1,000 kilometres long across the country's southern border, through which more than one million Mexicans enter the country illegally.
Calderon called the decision "deplorable."
"The wall will not solve the problem," he said. "Humanity made a huge mistake by building the Berlin wall and I believe that the United States is committing a grave error in building a wall on our border."
Not only will it be expensive for U.S. taxpayers, Calderon said, it will lead to an increase in the number of people who die each year seeking a more prosperous life in America.
"Over 400 people last year died trying to cross the border. What that decision is going to lead to is an increase in those fatalities."
On the U.S.'s northern border with Canada, the Bush administration recently announced plans to construct high-tech surveillance posts to guard against terrorists entering the country.
The Harper government, and its Liberal predecessor, lobbied hard in Washington to get the government to reverse this policy, as well as a border plan that would force Canadians and Americans to present passports or a form of secure identification when crossing into or out of the U.S. Those efforts have had little discernable impact.
Ottawa has argued it will hurt the economies of both countries, but particularly that of Canada, which relies on American tourism and American markets.
Harper said the situation in Mexico and that of Canada is much different, but he shares Bush's concern about safe borders.
"At the same time, we caution against things that can cause unnecessary barriers, not just to trade, but to the ordinary exchange of tourism and social relationships between our countries," he said.
The key document tying together the three NAFTA countries is the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a framework that seeks to balance the need for trade and border safety in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.
Calderon said building walls around the U.S. will weaken efforts to advance that agenda.
"I deplore the building of this wall and I would urge us to seek out mechanisms that would lead to more security of the three nations without damaging our interests as this wall does."
ANGANGUEO, Michoacan, Mexico -- They travel thousands of miles, unerringly, every year between Canada and Mexico. No one knows how they find their way.
Las mariposas -- the butterflies -- come by the millions. They arrive in Mexico's heartland, the Sierra Madre in the state of Michoacan, every November. Five sanctuaries are established to protect them and to let visitors see the miracle of the monarchs.
Rosario is the original butterfly sanctuary in Mexico, and the largest. It was already considered a sanctuary in 1986 when the Mexican government established two zones that form a Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, protected from logging and development.
The monarchs cluster on oyamel pines in the remote mountains, and the microclimate provides just the right temperature and moisture.
Indians in the area before Columbus arrived depicted butterflies in their drawings. The wintering grounds were first noted by scientists in the 1970s, when a Canadian zoologist rediscovered the spot.
In 2001, the government and private sources set aside millions of dollars for a fund called the Monarch Trust to pay local residents to stop cutting down the trees. Today, some of the farmers make their living off tourism, as guides.
Guide Andres Orosco and I start the three-hour drive from Morelia to Santuario El Rosario near Angangueo early in the morning.
Tourists have plenty to see on the way to Angangueo. In San Lucas Pio, outdoor vendors sell baskets woven using ancestral techniques. The town is one of many in the area where artisans create goods made there for centuries. Paracho is a guitar town, and in Santa Clara del Cobere, coppersmiths create jewelry, pots and more.
Between villages, the roadsides are lined with the cornfields of subsistence farmers and barbacoa stands. We stop near Querendaro to eat at one called Borrego Feliz -- Happy Sheep. I'm not so sure about that, because we are eating mutton, and I'm more than a little worried about the big, greasy-looking chunks of it that are being sliced as we pay for the meal.
But I could have relaxed.
The barbacoa -- sprinkled with lime, cilantro and onion and served with chile arbol -- is amazing -- delicate and spicy at once. Nothing like the heavy flavors I'd expected. Orosco says 20 different kinds of chiles are grown in the area.
This is a family enterprise. The father is slicing the mutton, which Orosco says was raised by the family and butchered, then buried for about a day in an underground cooking pit piled with maguey cactus for fuel. Two or three daughters are mixing masa (ground from corn he says they probably grew) into tortillas they cook on a charcoal-fired griddle.
As we drive on toward the sanctuary, Orosco hits the gas and squeals the tires around every curve, and there are a lot of them. Luckily, his spiel about the monarchs helps distract me from his driving.
A LONG FLIGHT
The insects leave Canada in September and arrive at their winter homes in Mexico around Nov. 2, the Day of the Dead. They fly about 2,500 miles, resting in trees by night. Some 40 million come to Santuario Rosario alone.
''They come here to die,'' Orosco says. The males live only 72 hours after mating. The females live on to lay eggs as they travel back toward the north. A monarch butterfly's life span is nine months at most.
Subsequent generations continue traveling north, reproducing and dying; the process repeats several times along the way. Several generations later, new offspring make the trip from Canada to Mexico.
One theory is that the butterflies navigate by smell, Orosco says. But no one really knows how they find the way. The route is the same every year.
Blue-and-white signs showing the way to the santuario start to appear as we get closer. The streets narrow in the towns with their central cathedrals and white-walled buildings. Campesinos, their hats hanging down their backs, trudge down the road, and skinny cows stare out at the cars. Homemade altars stand near the road, sometimes alone, sometimes near houses.
Finally, we are in Angangueo. People are dressed in their best on this Sunday afternoon. Every older woman is wrapped up in a rebozo (shawl) despite the unseasonably warm February weather.
At the santuario, the whole enterprise looks a lot more touristy than I'd expected. There is a charge to use the restroom, for starters. A ticket to enter the sanctuary costs about $2.75.
MAKING THE CLIMB
Orosco immediately starts marching up the path, which is steep and lined with food vendors. A little farther up, when I stop to gasp for breath, the selling begins in earnest. Booths are filled with butterfly mugs, butterfly lunch pails, butterfly paperweights, all the kinds of trinkets Americans expect from border Mexico. Until now, I hadn't seen it here in the interior.
I can't pay much attention to this annoyance, because the real butterflies have begun to drift down the mountainside, just a few here and there, flapping around the hordes of people marching up to see the colonies.
As the climb grows steeper, the crowd gets thicker, and so do the flocks of butterflies. After we've passed the booths, we begin to see hundreds at a time, often resting at places where water has collected.
They alight on bushes right beside us, sometimes brushing our wrists and faces with their wings and thin black legs. Kids are kneeling beside a flock of them on a creek bed, nudging them onto their hands and giggling.
Orosco says the black lines on their wings are the butterflies' thermometers. When they get too cold, they huddle together for warmth.
He outwalks me on the path -- it takes about an hour to reach the top -- but when I finally catch up, he urges me to climb a little higher, where the colonies are easier to see.
They are not what I expected. Still distant, high up in the firs, they hang in clusters. They look like orange infestations from here.
Andres says the migration was viewed by the indigenous peoples of Mexico as a plague. The Spaniards, he says, thought the butterflies were people's souls.
We stop to eat again on the way down, at a stand run by a woman named Isabel Valencia Hernandez. She greets Orosco, a regular customer, and we order blue corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and served with spicy salsa. They're good.
We are ready to leave, and the butterflies soon will be, too. The monarchs make the long journey back to Canada in early March.
They will repeat the cycle again, their internal road map still a mystery to us.
see:yomexico.com.............................
yomexicoNEWS....News about Mexico with an positive leaning....
Oh Pinon! News INVITING COMMENTS...Slanted to my opinon, of course..........................
The Pinon Tree of New Mexico that fed the generations is now, because of drought and the pressures of over-development, endangered, as it appears, are we all.
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