One Child’s Solution to Save the Monarch Butterflies Len Lear - Chestnut Hill
go to original October 28, 2022

Monarch Butterflies Are Now Endangered Species (LiveScience)

Noah Raven, whose last name already suggests a proclivity to help preserve wildlife, has started an initiative to save monarch butterflies. What is perhaps most remarkable about the efforts of Noah is that he is just 11 years old.

Noah has started a new organization, Monarch Defenders, and launched a website to go with it, encouraging young people across the country to help save the beautiful and fragile creatures. Monarch butterflies, which are readily identifiable by their two pairs of brilliant orange, black-veined wings with white spots towards the edges, are threatened with extinction due to climate change, pollution and habitat destruction.

Here’s how it works: people of any age, and from any place in the country, can become “Monarch Defenders” by planting micro-habitats of milkweed and pollinator plants. They will then be listed on an interactive map on Noah's website, which also provides information about the butterflies and other actions to help preserve them.

Noah, who is homeschooled by his father, Francis Raven, said he got the idea on a family trip to Mexico.

“We went to the Piedra Herrada reserve to see the monarch wintering site. It was so amazing; the trees were weighed down with millions of roosting monarchs,” he said. “Driving up to the reserve, there were butterflies flying all around us, streaming down past the road to a water source.”

He and his family did some research, and learned that the eastern population of monarchs has fallen by 80 percent. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the western population of Monarchs will collapse within 50 years without emergency intervention.

“I desperately wanted to help them,” Noah said. “My mom and I were talking about what we could do to help and got the idea of a youth group.”

Noah, who just completed sixth grade, said he thinks it's important for kids his age to get active.

Read the rest at Chestnut Hill

Related: Sign Petition to Demand Protection for Monarch Butterflies (The Care2 Team)

Related: Monarch Butterflies Are Now on the ‘Edge of Collapse’ (The Washington Post)

Related: Nature Crisis: ‘Insect Apocalypse’ More Complicated Than Thought (BBC)

  Learn about Monarch Defenders

  Learn about Butterfly Sanctuary Jardin Magico

  Learn about Vallarta Botanical Gardens

  Learn about Puerto Vallarta Garden Club