Blinded by the light
From The Mexpatriate archive
“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”
G.K. Chesterton
Welcome to a Sunday edition of The Mexpatriate.
When I was 14 years old, my family piled into our minivan one November day and drove 50 miles south from the suburbs of Denver to rural Kiowa (population 725).
I’d brought my treasured telescope and my star charts. At dusk, we arrived in a field full of parked cars, telescopes and camping chairs; the chilly air was quietly buzzing with geeky anticipation. We were all there to watch the Leonid meteor shower, but most importantly, we were chasing darkness—true darkness, once an inescapable nightly encounter for humans, is now elusive.
I still have vivid memories of that windy dark sky site, and of the efforts involved in trying to protect the darkness: only red flashlights were permitted as night descended and our eyes adjusted to the absence of light. At least we didn’t have cell phones to worry about back then.
Today I’m re-publishing a post I wrote in the summer of 2022 about a different nocturnal spectacle, but one that is also dependent on darkness: the summer mating rituals of fireflies in Tlaxcala, and the eco-tourism that has developed around this natural wonder.
Can fragile ecosystems survive when they become popular? Can local communities benefit enough economically to sustain their efforts to conserve wilderness? These are not academic questions for the people who live in the mountainous forests of Tlaxcala or Michoacán—both sites of seasonal insect wonders that attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year—or in the many other unique natural landscapes of Mexico.
In 2023, a firefly specialist group with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that some endemic species in Mexico are at risk, due to “irresponsible tourism practices”—most importantly, inadequate control of light pollution. “Most fireflies use species-specific flash codes to find mates. But light pollution blinds the flying males so they can’t find females,” as explained on a IUCN-associated site called Firefly Atlas. The firefly season ended prematurely in Tlaxcala in 2023.
Last year was also tough for fireflies because of drought. A rainy start to the summer this year has locals hopeful for a recovery of both the fireflies and firefly tourism. Local news media reported recently that 22 of the state’s 25 centers are open for tourists, and are expecting up to 120,000 visitors (there were only 107,000 last year) before the fleeting season winds down in August.
Originally published on June 19, 2022
Fireflies and the paradoxes of eco-tourism
“For a beetle, fireflies live long and full lives—around two years—though most of it is spent underground, gloriously eating and sleeping to their hearts’ content. When we see these beacons flashing their lights, they usually have only one or two weeks left to live. Learning this as a child—I could often be found walking slowly around untrimmed lawns, stalling and not quite ready to go inside for dinner—made me melancholy, even in the face of their brilliance. I couldn’t believe something so full of light would be gone so soon.”
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, World of Wonders
In the cool forests of oak and pine found in the smallest state in Mexico, the inhabitants celebrate the arrival of rain, heralding the season of mushrooms and luciérnagas (fireflies). As many regions of the country endure drought and hope fervently for a wet summer, in Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala, anticipation is even more heightened for what was once as dazzling as it was commonplace: the nocturnal mating rituals of fireflies.
“It was as if the sky was falling in little pieces: green, yellow and orange stars falling to earth. And their light was the only light we had, there wasn’t any electricity. At times it felt like being in a dream or a fairy tale,” reminisces Don Ricardo, an 81 year-old native of Nanacamilpa in an essay published in Gatopardo.
There are at least 2,200 species of fireflies (which are beetles) found on every continent. Mexico has a particularly rich assortment, with over 200 different species identified—including 37 new ones recorded just last year. Globally their populations have dropped significantly in recent years and scientists have concluded that while there are many factors, such as warming temperatures, deforestation, and pesticide use, one of the most insidious and devastating is light pollution.
There is a lot of chatter these days about our circadian rhythms and their disruption, how artificial light has impacted our sleep cycles and even our hormonal cycles. But perhaps we are less aware of how the circadian rhythms of the rest of the living world are affected by our technology. Modernity has nearly eradicated both darkness and silence; from the ocean depths to summer nights in the woods, they are ever more elusive. Harder to capture in hashtags than plastic straws or oil spills, endangered darkness is nonetheless a global reality, and one of its humble victims is the firefly.
“They communicate using light and they keep trying to send messages to other fireflies, but no one responds, no one receives the signal, and so they die,” explains biologist Tania López-Palafox. Concentrations of artificial light in urban and suburban areas appear to have disrupted their ability to communicate and mate.
“One day the fireflies became very famous and we don’t even know how,” says Don Ricardo, explaining the tourism phenomenon of the firefly “sanctuaries” in Tlaxcala. Between 2011 and 2019, summer visitors increased from 4,000 to 127,000.
In 2020 the centers were closed and in 2021, the season was menaced by drought. Less rain has meant more forest fires, and faster reproduction of destructive bark beetles that kill trees. The impact of unchecked tourism has also taken a toll. “The Tourism Department only has rules for behavior, hours, how many people a guide can take out, but that is not the same as ‘carrying capacity’. And it also isn’t adhered to because you can bring in as many people as you want,” according to Zazil Ha García, an eco-tourism researcher.
In what feels like a melancholy 21st century morality play—in this “age of unintended consequences”—the sparkling natural treasure of Nanacamilpa is slipping away from those who wish to preserve, and profit, from it.
“We were just a group of families trying to protect our right to work,” says Juan José Morales, the president of the “Executive Committee of the Society of Solidarity of Piedra Canteada”, an eco-tourism center on 632 hectares of property privately owned by 40 families.
“When we started, the people from the ejido [communal public land] thought we were crazy. Who’s going to come here to see fireflies? That will never work,” notes another member of the collective, Eliseo. There were 64 founding members originally, but some were suspended from the group for poor management practices. The families have restored the forest, which prior to their purchase of the property from the state government, was being exploited for lumber. “When they turned it over to us, the land was completely devastated, nothing had been done according to regulations. We have brought it back.”
The fading fireflies are victims of both hyper-local and global forces, as are their human guardians. This makes finding a “solution” to their plight a tangled prospect. All we do know is that when you pull on one thread in the tapestry of a living ecosystem, you may unravel more than you anticipate.
Firefly larvae are predators who may help control other populations of snails, slugs, and other insects as they munch their way through the underworld of the forest. If they vanish, we cannot foresee all the downstream effects. And what if they don’t? We are equally as blind to unexpectedly good future outcomes. There is some evidence already that one of the species of fireflies in Tlaxcala, photinus palaciosi, is adapting to the swelling human presence by changing its courtship schedule to the early morning hours rather than the evening.
Are these bio-luminescent beetles prophets of our future? Will we visit toads, crickets, wasps, spiders and wood lice in “sanctuaries” one day? If we pause to consider the familiar, under our feet or flying past us in the night, maybe we can change their fates and our own.
In the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer, “all flourishing is mutual.”
Thank you for reading, I’d love to hear from you with any comments or questions at hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you’d like to support my work, please consider a subscription.
Eco-tourism has always seemed to me something of a contradiction of terms, a ticking time-bomb folly that is just waiting for some critical mass to throw the "eco" completely out of whack. This is a lovely and timely article - thank you for helping to shed a light on these delicate boundaries.