The largest habitat recovery initiative in American history is needed to plant new and enhance existing populations of milkweeds and other native wildflowers for the recovery of monarch butterflies. This report offers insights—particularly for departments of transportation and other landscape managers—on how best to build collaborations to manage the milkweed seed supply chain to recover monarchs as well as crop pollinators in North America over the next decade.

Eighteen months after the Tres Amigos (Mexican, U.S., and Canadian leaders) agreed to collaborate one monarch butterfly recovery, we can at least see this vision reaching across borders to take hold at the grass roots level. Thanks to technical and financial support from many agencies, universities and non-profits, August 2015 was the season for hands-on…

My mantra has always been “the impact of the individual, the impact of the individual…” I have had great teachers in my life that made sure I realized that we indeed make a difference – but it’s up to us to choose if it’s a positive or negative one.

This all started with Gary Nabhan and his wonderful, heartwarming idea for Make Way for Monarchs to sponsor a “Day of Action and Contemplation”…

What has makewayformonarchs.org accomplished in its first year as a grassroots trinational alliance of conservation biologists, environmental educators, farmers, gardeners, graphic artists and writers?

As a group of individuals who share deep concerns about the recent declines in milkweeds, monarchs and other pollinators, the answer to this question can be summarized as follows…

Renowned NASA climate scientist Dr. Jim Hansen often opens his public lectures with a discussion of the monarch butterfly migration. He has helped his grandchildren raise milkweed on their farm and for years they have followed the life cycle of monarchs through to fall migration.

The Hansen youth have also been involved as “citizen scientists” participating in tagging the migrating monarchs.

It is likely that at least 170,000,000 acres of actively-sown annual field crops in American farmscapes are now depleted of their formerly-abundant milkweeds and monarch butterflies.

In the U.S. alone, there are more than 17,000,000 acres along federal, state and county highways that can potentially contribute to monarch butterfly recovery. The millions of linear miles of roadside right of ways that are dedicated to native vegetation can serve as potential habitat for monarchs as well as other butterflies, if they are […]