The big impact of UIC’s effort to protect the smallest of creatures

The monarch butterfly migrates a remarkable 3,000 miles between its overwintering grounds in central Mexico and California to its summer breeding grounds in Canada. This journey occurs over multiple generations.

However, since the 1990s, researchers have documented a drastic decline - more than 80% - in the eastern monarch butterfly population. Habitat loss, invasive species, disease and pesticides are all culprits.

As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed adding the monarch butterfly to its Endangered Species list, where it would join other well-known species like the gray wolf and whooping crane.

The University of Illinois Chicago is on a mission to protect the monarch butterfly and other pollinators, so crucial to our environmental health and even our food supply, by leading the nation's largest voluntary effort in monarch butterfly habitat conservation using rights-of-way land.

Cultural touchstone, environmental harbinger

The butterflies' impact extends beyond their lengthy flight path.

For Mexican Americans, the monarchs' impressively long journey has cultural significance, as a touchstone in histories of migration. Their arrival is a spiritual symbol in Día de los Muertos remembrances. In other cultures, the monarch butterfly is a motif of transformation and hope.

But monarchs also play an important role in nature, as an indicator of pollinator health. Pollinators like honeybees, moths, ants and beetles are crucial links in the ecosystems and food production systems we rely on. The decline in monarch populations has mirrored similar declines in many other pollinator species.

Monarch butterfly populations have declined significantly since 1993. (Credit: Monarch Joint Venture)

"Lose insects and you start to lose the birds and other animals that feed on them, which impacts the ecosystem more broadly", said Iris Caldwell, advisor for the UIC Sustainable Landscapes program, which facilitates the habitat conservation effort.

"A common statistic you hear is that one in every three bites of produce depends on pollinators," Caldwell said. "So, think about what it would look like to go to a grocery store where some of your favorite fruits are no longer available. Blueberries, strawberries, apples, chocolate, coffee - all of these would disappear without pollinators."

Monarch butterflies need a variety of wildflowers, particularly their host plant, milkweed. But, "As more landscapes are converted to urban sprawl and agriculture, fewer floral resources are available for them," added Alison Little, conservation partnership coordinator for the UIC Sustainable Landscapes program.

Addressing challenges across the continent

UIC's Rights of Way as a Habitat Working Groupwas established in 2015 to build partnerships between groups interested in encouraging conservation and sustainability. Caldwell saw an opportunity to collaborate with transportation and energy agencies to manage strips of land called rights of way as habitats for not just monarchs but other pollinators, too.

Rights of way are the parcels of land on either side of the highway, under energy transmission towers and power lines or alongside railroad tracks, for example.

"When this working group was first envisioned, I anticipated only about 30 or 40 people would participate in the conversation," Caldwell said. "Over 100 people from energy, transportation and government agencies attended the first meeting. That was our first clue that we were addressing a topic that resonated with an audience eager to engage in this conversation."

The largest program managed by the Rights of Way as Habitat Working Group is the Monarch Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances.Launched in 2020, a team of UIC faculty with students worked with organizations across the U.S. to create this unique approach to conservation.

The agreement encourages infrastructure land managers to conserve lands for monarch butterfly habitat. Through the conservation agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service incentivizes energy and transportation managers to conserve monarch butterfly habitat.

Win-win partnerships

To encourage these voluntary efforts, participating companies and organizations receive legal assurances protecting them against additional restrictions later. Today, more than 80 partnering companies and organizations have conserved 1.2 million acres (an area roughly the size of the Grand Canyon) for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.

These partners commit to manage the vegetation on these lands to maintain safety while also treating invasive species, controlling brush and helping native wildflowers spread. It may take several years before rights-of-way lands become ideal prairie-type habitat for monarchs and other pollinators.

Monarch butterfly monitoring efforts have spread across the nation as Monarch Candidate Conservation Agreement participation increases. Counties where monitoring efforts occurred from 2020-2024 appear in yellow. (Credit: Rights of Way as Habitat Working Group)

What does that look like on the ground? On a sunny day last summer at a utility company property in Northwest Indiana, Dan Salas explained.

"This area is unique in that we are mimicking what was historically here with tall grass prairie," said Salas, director of the UIC Sustainable Landscapes program, which oversees the Rights of Way as Habitat Working Group. "Many of these species are native to this part of the world and would have occurred as part of tall-grass ecosystems."

Through the Monarch Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances, the utility is recreating natural effects that would have historically occurred here, like the effect of natural wildfires, but with modern tools such as mowing, tree cutting and targeted herbicides to restore native habitats.

"The utility's main job is to provide power to all its customers. We ask them to include conservation in their work," Salas said. "By doing this, they can adopt practices that improve habitats and reduce environmental harm."

The Monarch Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances aims to establish over 300 million milkweed stems and restore 2.3 million acres of monarch habitat over the coming decades. In just five years, the program is already halfway to achieving this ambitious goal.