Degraded urban areas, such as empty lots and underdeveloped public spaces provide a great opportunity for habitat restoration and community engagement. Monarchs require resting, breeding and feeding habitat across their entire migratory range, whether it’s in the middle of a city or in a rural area. Community members benefit from beautifying neglected space, and from learning about the urban environment. In partnership with the MJV, the Pollinator Partnership has begun work to convert underused urban areas into monarch research stations.
The Pollinator Partnership (P2) has been working since 2010 throughout Northeast Ohio to raise awareness about pollinators. With their new program Transforming Urban Areas, degraded areas will be transformed into monarch research gardens, resulting in monarch habitat restoration as well as ongoing training and research opportunities. The program will hire and train local student interns in planting and monitoring monarch habitats, thereby increasing capacity for monarch habitat planting in the area.
Monarch Wings Across Ohio: Transforming Urban Areas is one component of the larger program which is working across multiple land use types; urban areas, gardens, corporate lands, and agriculture to research methods for creating monarch habitat.