You give us all butterflies

Thanks to donors like you, Canadians participating in our #GotMilkweed campaign over the past two years planted more than 15,000 milkweed and other pollinator-friendly flowers in backyards, parks and schoolyards throughout the summer breeding grounds of the monarch butterfly.

And it's working!

In February, we learned monarch populations have bounced back from two years of historic lows. This is great news! And every person who's taken part should be proud.

Still, monarch populations are 80 per cent lower than they were 20 years ago and must be larger to be resilient to ever-increasing threats, such as climate change and habitat loss. Planting milkweed is the most important thing we can do to help them.

(In case you didn't already know, monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed and the plants are their caterpillars' first food.)

BUTTERFLY WAY WITH US!

Your support already helped establish dozens of pollinator-friendly patches through the Homegrown National Park Project in the Greater Toronto Area. So we're expanding!

This spring, we're launching the Great Canadian Butterflyway project, to inspire people like you to create pollinator habitat across Canada. Canadian cities big and small can make space for native wild bees and local butterflies in parks, gardens, streets, laneways and rooftops. We'll provide tips, resources and inspiration.

And we're partnering with Tyler Flockhart, one of North America's leading monarch researchers, to determine how best to restore and enhance thousands of kilometres of linear infrastructure corridors -- rail, road and hydro rights-of-way -- to welcome even more butterflies and bees.

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