The monarch butterfly fund (MBF) has contributed to strengthening the network of civil society organizations that collaborate in the monarch butterfly region of Mexico. Thanks to the support and work of the MBF, it has been possible to share work experiences and develop projects that benefit the communities that inhabit the monarch region and the forests where the monarch butterflies hibernate. The MBF has also achieved the interaction of researchers and consultants from the three North American countries to carry out integral projects and initiatives in the monarch butterfly region.
The MBF has been a great supporter of the implementation of socio-environmental projects that help conserve the Monarch butterfly hibernation sites in Mexico and the indigenous communities and ejidos that are located within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.
In addition, the MBF has been a promoter of research and projects led by young people, which has strengthened the social capital of those of us who work for the conservation of the Monarch.
The monarch butterfly fund (MBF) has contributed to strengthening the network of civil society organizations that collaborate in the monarch butterfly region of Mexico. Thanks to the support and work of the MBF, it has been possible to share work experiences and develop projects that benefit the communities that inhabit the monarch region and the forests where the monarch butterflies hibernate. The MBF has also achieved the interaction of researchers and consultants from the three North American countries to carry out integral projects and initiatives in the monarch butterfly region.
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The support of the monarch fund has been defnitive for the promotion of the monarch network organization, which is a consortium of civil society organizations in the region of the monarch butterfly in Mexico. Its support has been definitive so that the monarch network reaches its conservation objectives and improves the living conditions of the inhabitants of the communities of the region.
As a board member of the Monarch Butterfly Fund and a monarch researcher, I have made many trips to the monarch wintering sites in Mexico. While it has been hard to see numbers dwindle over the almost 30 years I’ve been working in these sites, it is inspiring to support the amazing people working tirelessly to help monarchs and the people who live in the region.
Being involved with MBF for the past ten years—first as a professional working with insects and then as a board member—has been a life-changing experience. MBF is a friendly organization devoted to supporting conservation efforts in Mexico to preserve the Monarch migration. All board members are dedicated to this goal and contribute from different perspectives to ensure it is achieved. I have also been very impressed with the precise and detailed budget management, which maximizes the number of sustainable projects we can support. Long live MBF!
This is my favourite place to donate my monarch conservation dollars. The board members are trustworthy pillars of the monarch community. Virtually all the money is spent on worthwhile projects in Mexico, from education, research, and training, to planting and beautification. Who else would support murals at the overwintering sites? These provide photo ops that visitors love, and share on social media, inspiring more people to visit the sanctuaries. I encourage you to visit their website as their projects are numerous and varied. One of their projects is to support the work of Sara Dykman, the one who rode her bicycle from El Rosario to Canada and back. She continues to do monarch research, employing many local women, empowering them, providing data, and keeping families from resorting to logging to feed their families.
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I am a citizen scientist from Canada, author of How to Raise Monarch Butterflies A Step-by-Step Guide for Kids. With 30,000 books sold, and 11,000 facebook followers, I am often asked which nonprofits will help the monarchs most. MBF is always at the top of my list, along with Monarch Watch.
I personally know many of the board members, whom I trust, and give tirelessly to conserve monarchs.
I have visited Alternare, one of their projects in Mexico. They do simple yet important things. They teach people, and train trainers to teach, how to produce more food, and give them the supplies they need to do it. They build cisterns to provide families with water, all as an effort to decrease the need poor people have to cut the forest just to feed their families. They provide fuel efficient wood burning stoves, which is the most common way to cook, to reduce the need for wood, and reduce the respiratory diseases caused by that burning. They plant tens of thousands of trees, while teaching school children to do the same, along with the importance of saving the monarch's overwintering grounds.
This is just a small sample of the good work MBF does, right on the ground near the sanctuaries, to put your monarch conservation dollars to best use.
Monarch Butterfly Fund support local efforts and leadership in the overwintering sites, surrounding areas to offer skills, needed infrastructure, training and to share information with us out in the bigger world who care what's happening both with monarchs and the Mexican communities. Their newsletter is full of good and helpful information i share widely. The board is A+.
The Monarchy Butterfly Fund helps people around the Mexican overwintering colonies as well as the monarchs in the colonies. Well done!
Given recent low wintering monarch populations and the continued severe drought that damaged and killed many Oyamel fir trees in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, this is a critical time for us to financially support Monarch Butterfly Fund. MBF benefits the monarchs and local communities through habitat restoration, research, monitoring, education, and support for sustainable community development. MBF collaborates with other organizations and individuals committed to working in these areas. As others have pointed out, these collaborations generate skills and ability in local communities for forest management and stewardship; and improves the economic well-being for local residents. I applaud MBF’s support of the Beyond The Mexico Book Project V. Workshops conducted by Alternare A. C. to construct huge community ferrocement water cisterns will be vital during long periods of drought. I am impressed by MBF’s support of new technologies to monitor forest health and track individual migrant monarchs, and their continued support of monarch-related research generated by university students in Canada, U.S.A. and Mexico through The Lincoln Brower Awards. There is no question in my mind that my financial support is used wisely and I will continue to support Monarch Butterfly Fund now and in the future.
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As a donor to Monarch Butterfly Fund, I know that it is most important to conserve and rehabilitate the forests in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, but to also to improve the quality of life for the ejidatarios living in the Reserve. Many of these people live in extreme poverty. Improving their quality of life may allow these people to be better able to be the true guardians of their own forests. I like how MBF partners with many other organizations doing effective work in the Reserve. The research MBF supports will guide efforts to conserve and protect the monarchs and their forests. I will continue to donate to Monarch Butterfly Fund in 2019. I am confident that their strategies are the best ones.
I love the Monarch Butterfly Fund because of the great impact is having to conserve the migration of the monarch butterflies to Mexico. The organization supports habitat conservation, research and monitoring, education and outreach, and sustainable development in the areas that monarchs chose to overwinter.
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As a board member of the Monarch Butterfly Fund, I see the great impact that the organization is having to increase the knowledge the needed to conserve the overwintering sites of the monarch butterfly. The Monarch Butterfly Fund supports local organizations and scientist to obtain needed funds to implement needed work in the communities (like finding alternative sources of incomes instead of logging the forest) and to purse further fundraising.
Before I received the MBF newsletters, I had no understanding or appreciation of monarchs. They are amazing. Now each year, I look forward to following their itineraries as they travel back and forth between Mexico and Canada. I also appreciate that MBF supports research.
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Over the past few years, I have learned a lot about Monarchs through
the MBF. I have been particularly impressed to learn about their
migration patterns when they travel from Mexico to the northern USA
and Canada and back again. They are impressive. I appreciate the
work that MBF does to monitor the Monarch population, as well as
their efforts to restore the habitat where they spend the winter in
Mexico. We don't want to lose the Monarchs; they are precious.
I encourage MBF to continue their good work.
The Monarch Butterfly Fund is a wonderful non profit that helps to conserve monarch butterflies and provide information to the public. They partially funded my master's research which dealt with the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on monarch butterfly flight, development, and reproduction. As a result of their funding, I was able to secure research materials and cover expenses, which took some burden off of myself and the lab that I studied in. I would highly recommend this non-profit to donors and for researchers to apply for their grants.
Working in NGOs focused on monarch butterfly conservation has helped me understand the vital importance of the support provided by the Monarch Butterfly Fund (MBF) in protecting these butterflies and their habitat in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. The MBF funds scientific research, habitat restoration, education, community empowerment, sustainable development, and maintains a long-term commitment to biodiversity and ecosystem preservation. Their work is essential for preserving this beautiful species and its environment.
Through the years, the Monarch Butterfly projects have been really helping the communities that best help the monarchs, and have been very creative. Also their involvement and insight into each community to best help them and the butterflies, are an act to follow. Keep up the great work.
I am Emanuel, a proud resident of Aporo in the Monarch Butterfly Reserve. I have seen up close MBF's tireless effort to care for the region's natural resources. Their active involvement in environmental education in local schools and their collaboration in tree production with students, teachers and parents are vital to conserve and engage local communities in this important preservation work.
As a volunteer for a nonprofit, The Environmental Education Alliance, Inc., we are proud to have received funding through the Monarch Butterfly Fund's Small Grants program for four years! These funds have allowed us to donate books for the schools in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve to complement the environmental lessons that we facilitate. These books help develop reading skills and increase both nature and science awareness and knowledge which we believe will result in more environmentally-responsible Mexican citizens.
The Board and staff of the Monarch Butterfly Fund are professional, competent, and devoted to their mission of fostering the conservation of North American monarch butterflies and their migration through efforts in four strategic areas: habitat conservation, scientific research and monitoring, outreach and education, and sustainable development.
We are honored to be a recipient of their grants and to participate in the outreach and education efforts for monarch butterflies!
I am Adriana, I am 36 years old, and I live in the El Rosario community, in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. We are very grateful to the Monarch Butterfly Fund (MBF) and Alternare’s training. Thanks to them, we have come together and learned to build stoves and we do not need to log trees. They also taught us how to build cisterns, and now, thanks to one of them, our families have access to clean water to grow vegetables without using chemicals and we do not pollute. We are really grateful for this opportunity to take care of our environment.
I always look forward to summer when I can spot some monarch butterflies in the city’s parks and green areas. When I met Monica, who works with the Monarch Butterfly Fund, and she told me more about the migration of the butterflies to Mexico and all the conservation work MBF does, I was fascinated. Now I’m an avid monarch butterfly supporter and follow their spectacular journey all year. I really like the fact that MBF helps the local communities in Mexico and their holistic approach to conservation. The monarchs are beautiful and their migration is amazing, but if we don’t consider all the other aspects like the forest, the water and the well-being of the local people that live near the overwintering sites, we’ll fail to conserve this wonderful phenomenon of nature. MBF is taking the right approach and I commend them!
As a master’s student in Sustainability and Alternare collaborator, I can say that MBF’s support for projects has been key for the conservation and restoration efforts that are being carried out in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Undoubtedly, MBF's investment in the promotion of programs designed to strengthen the skills and capacities of the inhabitants and owners of these forests has had a measurable and verifiable impact on the comprehensive sustainable development of the monarch region, an essential aspect to preserve the amazing migratory phenomenon of the monarch butterfly.
I am the President of Alternare, an organization in Mexico that has been receiving support from MBF since 2010. For Alternare, the collaboration with MBF has been invaluable in the preservation and restoration of natural resources in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Their support has enabled our organization to develop campesino training processes, promoting sustainable development hand in hand with local communities. MBF's active involvement in our environmental education, tree production and reforestation program in close collaboration with students, teachers, and parents from 30 rural schools has been a fundamental pillar in achieving our annual goals.
I am a university professor at the State University of Michoacán, México. My project dealing of how to improve the reforestations with oyamel (Abies religiosa) considering climatic change, meaning using shrubs as protective nurse plants, assisted migration (collecting oyamel seeds from warmer sites to produce seedlings adapted to future warmer planting sites), and placing Abies religiosa species range expansion field tests at higher altitudes, even outside of the Monarch Butterfly Reserve (to compensate ongoing and projected climatic change), have been supported by Monarch Butterfly Fund steadily since 2014. They unique approach of considering grant proposals combining: open to novel ideas, requesting local actors participation ("ejidatarios" and "comuneros"), the support of students by stipends and their flexibility to proof the proyect expenses, make this ONG quite exceptional. Without their support, our achievements (like 92 % survival of oyamel seedlings 6 years after planting at Ejido La Mesa, in the Core Zone of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve) simply could not be possible. It has been really an honor to work with MBF.
Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
Morelia, Michoacán, México.
The Monarch Butterfly Fund sponsors many valuable programs to work with the local communities in Mexico which help monarch conservation, particularly their programs in education.
Habitat protection and restoration in the monarch’s Mexican mountain sanctuaries are essential to the monarchs' survival. Their reforestation projects replace and improve the stands of Oyamel Fir trees that the wintering monarchs need to roost in.
I have been following the activities of monarch support organisations for many years and count the Monarch Butterfly Fund among the most valuable.
As an active citizen scientist and a strong supporter of insect conservation, I think that we are lucky to have an excellent group like the Monarch Butterfly Fund to work for monarch conservation.
Carolyn King
Toronto Entomologists' Association
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As an active citizen scientist and a strong supporter of insect conservation, I think that we are lucky to have an excellent group like the Monarch Butterfly Fund to work for monarch conservation in Mexico, where habitat protection and restoration are essential to the monarchs' winter survival. Their local programs in education play a vital role. Their reforestation projects replace and improve the stands of Oyamel Fir trees that the wintering monarchs need to roost in.
They sponsor many valuable programs to work with the local communities which help monarch conservation.
I have been following the activities of monarch support organisations for many years and count the Monarch Butterfly Fund among the most valuable.
Carolyn King
Toronto Entomologists' Association
Monarch Butterfly Fund supports the monarch butterfly and its magnificent migration through habitat restoration, research, monitoring, education and support for sustainable community development in and near Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR) in Mexico. The conservation of natural resources requires a multi-faceted approach that protects monarch overwintering habitat and migratory pathways; generates skills and ability in local communities for forest management and stewardship; and improves the economic well-being for local residents. MBF promotes and supports collaboration among organizations and individuals committed to these activities.
MBF is an amazing supporter of monarch conservation work across borders. I am impressed by the research they support, and by the work they fund to support habitat conservation projects.
My message it´s writed in spanish, i apologise for the inconvenience.
Buenas noches, el MBF ha sido un apoyo fundamental para el desarrollo de la "Exposición Itinerante" de las experiencias de trabajo de las organizaciones que conforman la Red Monarca, iniciativa que fue propuesta en reuniones y que fue aceptada por el grupo que finalmente decidió plantear y llevar a cabo la selección de fotografías que relatan el trabajo de cada una de ellas en la región de la Reserva de la Marisposa Monarca en los estados de Michoacán y México, previo a la presentación de la exposición en la Red se dio un taller de fotografía para técnicos de proyecto y esta fue solicitada al fotógrafo mexicano Agustín Martínez (@agustk). La convocatoria fue para las organizaciones que conformaban la Red en el 2012, después de las selección de fotografías se logró tener 32 imágenes de 16 organizaciones. Esta exposición ha sido expuesta en varios sitios en Michoacán y Estado de México así como en la Universidad de Minessota, creo que este trabajo relata claramente el apoyo de MBF a la región y en ese sentido este esfuerzo es un premio a la labor desempeñada. Agradezco la atención a este relato. Best regards, Emiliano Palacios
For more than a decade, Monarch Butterfly Fund has funded projects for the conservation of the monarch butterfly habitat in Mexico. In addition, its support enabled the creation of the first online documentary centre on the monarch butterfly and the Monarch Network (www.redmonarca.org).
The Monarch Butterfly Fund is a great partner in conservation for monarch butterflies! They are a partner organization of the Monarch Joint Venture, and a great supporter of our conservation work across the United States! Recognizing that it is the responsibility of Canada, Mexico, and the United States to conserve and protect monarch butterflies for future generations to enjoy, the Monarch Butterfly Fund provides critical support in advancing conservation and sustainability in and near the monarch overwintering reserves in Mexico. Their work in engaging local communities in Mexico, and across North America, to help protect monarchs and their amazing migration is inspiring!
The inspiring efforts of the Monarch Butterfly Fund for the conservation of monarchs its amazing. I had the opportunity to see their restoration work in the Monarch Butterfly Reserve in Michoacán, Mexico and they are achieving relevant results. I really recommend to know and support your work.
Thanks to the Monarch Butterfly Fuhd's trust and support, our organization has been actively working for 20 years for the conservation and recovery of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR), achieving many things including the improvement of the standard of living of its inhabitants through capacity development. We are based in Mexico and through our community development strategy we train local communities, reforest and promote sustainable development projects. We are very proud of our partnership with MBF and hope to continue working together to reach our common goal of conserving the forest ecosystem in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve through sustainable activities that will preserve the monarch butterflies and increase the wellbeing and knowledge of the local communites.
Having worked with monarch butterflies for 45+ years, as The Butterfly Whisperer® I am frequently asked to support and/or promote various individuals, groups and organizations dedicated to the preservation and protection of our winged friends. The recent and widespread increase in interest to help monarchs is most inspiring! Of all the options now available to put my full support behind, the MBF is my go-to choice. I have such confidence in this group - their dedication, large picture thinking, collaborative spirit, collective expertise and impactful projects - that when I married in 2016, our guests were invited to donate to the MBF in lieu of wedding gifts. You too are invited to support the MBF... It's 100% Butterfly Whisperer® approved!
The Monarch Butterfly Fund does great work. Their projects have helped not only the Monarch butterfly increase its population but the people in the Communities surrounded by the overwintering grounds benefit from its many fine projects. Education is a big part of what they do, leading to motivation to do things a better way.
Monarch Butterfly Fund continues to provide critical support for the monarchs and their forests in Mexico, but also support for the people who live here. Our 2018 reforestation project in partnership with Alternare was a success. In 2016, we supported recovery of a 10-hectare illegally logged forest on Sierra Chincua - very close to where monarchs overwinter each year. We provided fencing for the area that will recover through natural regeneration to keep cattle out. The results of scientific research we support will provide knowledge for those planning to preserve and protect the monarch forests. Workshops will help local citizens improve the quality of their lives as true guardians of their own forests. Thank you.
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Monarch Butterfly Fund carries out effective work in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve because of partnerships developed with the Reserve management, local communities and NGO's. These projects benefit the monarchs but also the ejidatarios who make the Reserve their home. Past projects include reforestation, workshops on the construction of water cisterns and high efficiency wood stoves. As active participants in the reforestation and rehabilitation of 10 ha of Monarch Reserve forest that were egregiously illegally logged on Sierra Chincua last summer, MBF was involved in the planning, Board members engaged in tree planting, and MBF made key recommendations which included allowing parts of the area with healthy oyamel fir seedlings to regenerate naturally. MBF paid for fencing to keep wandering cattle out of the natural regeneration areas. This important work must continue! Your generous donation will make this happen. Read about our work at http://monarchbutterflyfund.org . Thank you.
Monarch Butterfly Fund has never posted photos documenting how it has ever used donation money to help monarch butterflies in a biologically meaningful way. Example: TheFund has never posted photos of new butterfly cluster trees planted at the overwintering sites in Mexico to replace those that were cut down by loggers, toppled by storm winds or mudslides or burned during forest fires.
Think, people! This organization JUST STARTED in summer, 2014! Their so-called "reviews" are dated at the same time as their start-up! Yet, those reviews and the home page are claiming a long and successful track record by the MBF! Do you really want to give your money to a group who is not honest about their origins? Who is not honest about what they have actually done as the Monarch Butterfly Fund? Who recruits others to be DIS-honest for them in writing these "reviews"? Whose very tiny, very recent track record exists in another country where their alleged activities cannot be monitored or verified?
The PEOPLE who have formed MBF have a long track record as dedicated monarch researchers with MANY years in that field combined. But the ORGANIZATION is not as they claim. Why would they do that? What could possibly be the motive? Would it have anything to do with the U.S. President opening the financial floodgates for monarch and pollinator conservation and these people hurriedly formed this group to cash in? The presidential announcement and the MBF were made public at the same time. Why not say" we have created this new group and this is what we want to do, will you help us"? Why lie? That's a BIG RED FLAG.
You would all do well to back up from this thing and go very slowly. Or maybe not go at all! There are other groups of long-standing and with an incredible success rate who have been re-foresting the monarch biosphere reserve areas. You would do well to check them out first before going with a brand new group who makes false claims and believe they are very clever to do so.
The monarch butterfly fund is a professional and credible organization dedicated to conserving monarch butterflies and their habitat. By partnering with local communities, the Monarch Butterfly Fund is working to strengthen conservation efforts while improving the quality of life of both butterfly and local people populations. The experts, members and donors who invest in this organization are committed to the well being of people, butterflies and the planet.
I could not think of a group of people that is more committed to monarch butterfly conservation than MBF. I completely disagree with username VGRR who says that MBF only provides travel funds for a few monarch enthusiasts. Clearly, this person has not been involved with MBF and has no clue of what MBF does for Mexican ejidatarios who protect and conserve the overwintering habitat for monarchs. I have been lucky enough to get to know and to collaborate with MBF board members who are the most knowledgeable group of scientists I know. I have never been in touch with a group of people that is so driven to conserve the migratory phenomenon of monarch butterflies. I would like to invite username VGRR to come to Mexico and witness how MBF has changed the lives of many people and has supported various projects aimed at conservation of the overwintering sites. If anybody is interested in knowing what MBF does in Mexico I invite them to contact me. Kind regards,
Dr. Pablo Jaramillo López, Ph.D. (pjaramil1@gmail.com)
The Monarch Butterfly Fund is doing a great job of taking action to reverse the downward trend in the population of the Monarch butterfly. I expect that we will see positive results in a few years.
I went down and visited their operation in the buffer zone of the Monarch Butterfly reserve. It is going really well, they know their stuff when it comes to trees and have a great team on the ground. They are also very reliable and quick to respond to any questions / concerns.
We are lucky to have an excellent group like the Monarch Butterfly Fund to support monarch conservation in Mexico, where habitat protection and restoration are essential to the monarchs' winter survival. Their local programs in education play a vital role. Their reforestation projects replace and improve the stands of Oyamel Fir trees that the wintering monarchs need to roost in.
I have been following the activities of monarch support organisations for many years and count the Monarch Butterfly Fund among the most valuable.
Carolyn King
Toronto Entomologists' Association
I have been a Monarch Butterfly citizen scientist since 1994. Since that time I have been actively involved with many of the people and organizations affiliated with the Monarch Butterfly Fund. Its existence is very important for the support of educational programs in three countries and the many tracking and data collecting programs around the country, mostly being led by people like me and my associate volunteers in parks and gardens year around to render the information of the importance of this marvelous bell-weather for our fragile environment. We need the Monarch Butterfly species to thrive and we need the support of your organizations to continue do all we can to protect and improve the plight of all the smaller life that has to rely on the spaces we create.
Monarch Butterfly Fund is one of the most valuable organizations supporting the monarch butterfly migration. Their support of reforestation at the overwintering sites in Mexico is wonderful. Their funds improve the lives of the local people as well as enabling the planting of thousands of the Oyamel fir trees. I have seen the work that MBF supports at Alternare (in Michoacan) and it is phenomenal. MBF also has several valuable publications that I use for presentations and displays. The website is very user friendly and MBF has worked to provide excellent resource material.
Monarch Butterfly Fund's strategy focuses on protecting and expanding the forest in the Monarchs' overwintering habitat. In addition, they have programs to educate local people about the butterflies as well as sustainable development projects to help locals make money in ways other than logging.
Without these local initiatives in Mexico, the species will not survive. Protecting habitat in the U.S. is not part of this charity's mission, not should it be, since it would be spreading itself too thin. I am currently a citizen science participant in the Monarch Watch tagging program, and they and other groups are working very hard on the habitat issue in North America. I would be sad if people criticized us for not also working to save the forest in Mexico.
Each group needs to focus its mission, and that is what the Monarch Butterfly Fund has done. I rest better at night knowing there are groups at work protecting the forest where my hand-raised Monarchs will end up needing a place to roost.
The Monarch Butterfly Fund mainly provides free airfare and hotel expenses for a select few monarch butterfly enthusiasts to visit the overwintering sites in Mexico and attend various meetings in the USA and Canada. MBF hasn't done anything that truly helps monarch butterflies - like it hasn't spent time contacting state highway departments in its own home state of Minnesota to get them to stop mowing milkweed plants at times of year when monarch eggs and caterpillars are on the plants.
I am so grateful that there are people like those in the Monarch Butterfly Fund to act on behalf of all of us to protect and preserve these creatures, both delicate and hardy, as they struggle with the conditions that we have created. Their activities (the MBF that is) are both sensitive and practical and get at immediate solutions to the plight of the butterflies, food and safe habitats. The butterflies are one of the early victims of our carelessness with our environment and we need to pay attention to the warning they are providing.
I'm behind the MBF 100%
Wendy Campbell