Speaking Up for Monarchs: Talk About Taking Action

The Bay Area Butterfly Festival is this coming Sunday, June 1st, from 10am-5pm on Mare Island in Vallejo. Organized by the Vallejo People’s Garden, Solano Resource Conservation District, and The Monarch Milkweed Project, it will be the last event of the season for The School Garden Doctor. In addition to volunteering to help staff the Xerces information booth, I will co-present the last talk of the day with Mia Monroe, co-founder of the Western Monarch Count. At 4:30, we’ll share a 20-minute reprise of a presentation we gave last week at Curious Flora Nursery’s (formerly Annie’s Annuals) Pollinator Party on May 17th.

In the talk, we’ll share a framework that introduces four types of individual actions we can take for collective impact. The framework is inspired by an interview between Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Leah Penniman for the book What If We Get It Right? Johnson is a marine biologist and climate policy expert who explores every angle for addressing the climate crisis; Penniman is the founder of Soul Fire Farm and the author of Farming While Black. When Johnson asked Penniman about the future of climate and food farming, Penniman visualized the future through using an image of a butterfly wing with four segments, recommending that not everyone is suited for all actions.

This image resonated with me because we used a similar tool to engage community members at events last fall. Alongside other interactive, multimodal, and multilingual opportunities, we asked folks to select an action that most resonated with them and place a sticker on an image of a butterfly wing labeled with that action.

As I continued learning about the many threats to monarch butterflies, I’ve added to the list of actions. However, I still emphasize the action that I found most surprising: avocado consumption. I’ve since handed out hundreds of avocado stickers to audiences who are willing to hear about what avocados have to do with monarch butterflies. Increased demand for avocados has fueled deforestation and devastated overwintering habitat in Michoacán.

U.S. consumption of avocados has risen almost fivefold in the past 25 years, with 90 percent of the fruit now coming from two states in southwest Mexico’s “avocado belt,” which is now known for its deforestation and criminal violence.

By Agustín del Castillo and Fred Pearce

Although the majority of western monarchs don’t migrate to Mexico, many residents in Napa have roots in Michoacán. If you read the post, What is Dia de los Muertos and how does it connect to monarch butterflies?, you know about the cultural significance of the monarch butterfly there.

Indigenous communities are resisting. Resist is one of the four types of action we can take to address the dramatic decline of the monarch butterfly populations. Three others are: Reform, Re-envision, and Repair.

School garden educators are re-envisioning how to incorporate more habitat. Earlier this month, I shared a version of the “Taking Action” talk in five middle school classes at Calistoga Jr./Sr. High School where science teacher Jeremy Grove has been planting habitat on their campus. He also took action by asking City Council to reform policies and adopt a pesticide ban. When Mr. Grove asked students how many students had ancestors from Michoacán, nearly half of the students in every class raised their hands.

To make the talk more interactive, we invited students to make ‘Fortune Teller’ origami. After folding paper into squares and triangles, we wrote one of each action and practiced imagining a more hopeful future. We concluded class with a community circle and asked each student to share which type of action they could see themself taking. There was a range of responses, but many of the students identified most strongly with repair.

Attending events that celebrate our flagship species is one of the ways we can repair our relationship to nature and heal environmental wounds. When I share this talk with the community, I often see look on people’s faces change when they learn about the deep cultural connection to monarch butterflies. I’m convinced they are ready to take action.

Come celebrate butterflies on June 1st. If you can’t make it, stay tuned for other local opportunities to hear this talk.