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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Robin McKie Science editor

‘Every tree used to be blanketed with them’: photographer captures campaign to save monarch butterfly

In the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacan in Mexico, a single latecomer joins the others for the night.
In the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacan in Mexico, a single latecomer joins the others for the night. Photograph: © Jaime Rojo, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Jaime Rojo has been following the fate of the monarch butterfly for more than 20 years. In the process the Spanish photographer has watched one of the planet’s most colourful, flamboyant insect species succumb to the combined onslaught of habitat destruction, climate change, pesticides, drought and wildfires. Its population has crashed in the process.

It is a dramatic, disturbing story that will be recognised next month when Rojo is given a highly commended award for his photojournalism at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London.

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