Monarch Butterfly Conservation Summit
“We’ve all experienced the moment of childhood joy and excitement when we spot a monarch butterfly fluttering through the air...If we let the western monarch butterfly go extinct, we’ll lose an iconic, beautiful species – and a critical pollinator – forever. This is an urgent issue that requires urgent solutions.”
The Monarch Butterfly Conservation Summit (Monarch Summit), convened by U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (Oregon), in collaboration with the Department of the Interior, was a first of its kind summit on preserving the monarch butterfly held at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, DC. The two-day Monarch Summit facilitated by Kimberly Horndeski brought key stakeholders together to share information on the current state of the science—including natural history, population status, and habitats—and barriers to conservation success for this iconic species. It also brought together policymakers and state and federal agencies to plan how to put the science into action.
Together, we broke down silos and identified 11 recommendations that Senator Jeff Merkley could implement in the next three to six months to make significant steps towards long-term progress on Monarch butterfly conservation.
