CHALLENGES.
The growing demand for wood is causing the remaining forest to be cut down at a dangerously increasing rate. Ed Rashin, a Forest Hydrologist and Technical Assistant to the MRF and La Cruz Projects, estimated that 40,000 oyamel fir trees are needed each year to sustain the needs of the population living in and around the Monarch Overwintering Sites.

To earn additional income, local residents also harvest oyamel and pine trees logs from the forest's monarch habitats and sell them to commercial logging operations who will buy whatever is for sale. Most oyamel logs become pallets.

More challenges to come.