Let It Grow

Loss of monarch habitat is the biggest factor in the monarch decline. Pesticides, GMO crops, human expansion with the development of housing/commercial property and mowing practices simply for beautification all play major parts. Through our “Let it Grow” campaign we spread the word about planting milkweed and nectar plants, the reduction of mowing and limiting chemical usage.

In 2015 it was estimated that 167 million acres of milkweed/monarch habitat had been lost since the introduction of GMO crops in 1997 and the signing of the ethanol mandate in late 2007 – according to Chip Taylor, Director of Monarch Watch.org, a nonprofit education, conservation and research program based out of the University of Kansas. We’ve been losing at least a million acres of critical habitat a year since then and it is effecting the monarch population. Check out this blog post from March 6, 2025 showing the decline in monarch numbers in the overwintering sites in Mexico – Monarch Watch Blog

That’s pretty startling, isn’t it?

The most important question is – how can we slow down and even reverse the decline in monarch numbers?  We don’t have the luxury of sitting around debating what should be done. We need to start doing something right now, today!

It starts with education – so many people don’t even know how important milkweed plants are to the monarch survival. After all, they are just weeds, right? We rip them from the garden beds, totally unaware of the beauty of their large blooms or the incredible fragrance that permeates the whole yard on a warm summer evening, or even more important – that it is the only plant monarch caterpillars eat… But some are starting to take notice.

In January 2015, the Illinois Tollway Authority agreed to work with the Natural Resource Defense Council to plant milkweed along 286 miles of roadways, including suburban areas of interstates 90, 88 & 294. The program was not expected to add costs to the Tollway’s standard landscaping practices and could possibly save on mowing costs.

In February 2015, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a $3.2 million initiative for monarch conservation. A partnership with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) would provide $2 million for on the ground conservation projects to restore and enhance over 200,000 acres of monarch habitat, much of it focusing on the I 35 corridor from Texas to Minnesota, a major breeding and migration flyaway zone.  Another $1.2 million would go as seed money to generate a larger fundraising match from public and private organizations to fund monarch conservation efforts.

But it hasn’t been enough. In November 2024, the USFWS proposed a rule to list the monarch butterfly as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. But in April 2025, the Trump-Vance administration proposed removing the current regulatory definition of “harm” from the Endangered Species Act. And the poor little monarch is stuck in the middle of all of this.

We can’t expect the government to completely fix this, but even more so, we don’t have time to wait for them to figure it out. We need a multitude of large scale public-private partnerships that focus on the restoration of milkweed/monarch habitats. The major flyaway zone, which extends from the Upper Midwest through central Texas, should hold priority, but we also need to enhance monarch habitats throughout the United States. And we need to get serious about climate change.

And each of us can start making a difference, one garden, one yard at a time… Plant milkweed, native growing milkweed. Live in a condo? Pot up some nectar plants for your deck. Mow the Creeping Charlie instead of using herbicides. Purchase your bedding plants from growers who do not use neonicotinoids (ne.o.nic.o.ti.noid) or seeds treated with it, a systemic insecticide that has been linked to declining pollinator populations. Scale back on how much you mow, especially in rural areas and delay ditch mowing until after Oct. 1. These are just a few of the simple ways we can start helping the monarch. Spread the word. Make a change for the better.