Why This? Why Now?

That's a question that’s been asked many times. The monarch is the “canary in the coal mine.” Its plight signals that pollinators in general cannot survive without the natural habitat that sustains them and, furthermore, it signals a ecological change that could become catastrophic. The Midwestern population of the iconic monarch butterfly has decreased by more than 90 percent in two decades. In 2014, a petition was submitted to protect the butterfly under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Ahead of the monarch was the bumble bee, which was added to the list in 2017. Honey bee colonies continued to face record colony losses. The monarch and bumble bee are pollinators, and as a group, they are essential to $24 billion in agricultural crops each year and more than 180,000 plant species. They are critically important to a healthy ecosystem, since most flowering plants require help from pollinators to produce food or seed. Yet their homes and food sources have disappeared and won’t return. Nearly 24 million acres of natural habitat had been converted to crop production between 2008 and 2011.

Why MR?

In June 2016, Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental author Dan Fagin visited MRP. He commented, “What you are doing in Linn County really is extraordinary; I’m not aware of anyone else rearing monarchs and creating habitat in a particular county or city at the scale you are attempting. In fact, I don’t think anyone is even close.”

 “What you are doing is audacious in the best sense of the word: You’re trying something difficult, and you’re doing it for good reasons,” Fagin said.