Springtime is on the horizon: days are lengthening and flowers are blooming—with the help of the monarch butterfly. Their pollination rituals, which promote biodiversity, are a vital part of what makes an ecosystem thrive. But, due to pesticides, habitat loss, and climate change, monarch butte rflies have become a threatened species. The Oklahoma Monarch Society (OMS) is a nonprofit organization committed to the protection and preservation of Monarch butterflies and their habitats. Oklahoma is a central pathway in the migration route of the species, adding to the weight of responsibility upon the Sooner State. Like meandering migration routes, the creation of OMS was not linear. The group has gone through multiple iterations, each time perfecting their conservation approach. This article is sponsored by the Potts Family Foundation According to Katie Hawk, the executive director of OMS, the organization was first created after the Nature Conservancy of Oklahoma was approached by the National Wildlife Federation about creating a statewide conservation plan to help prevent further threats to monarchs. This pushed the Conservation Coalition of Oklahoma and The Nature Conservancy to create the Oklahoma Monarch Summit in November 2016, inviting potential stakeholders and the environmentally conscious. From this event, the Oklahoma Monarch Pollinator Collaborative (OMPC) was conceived. OMPC began organizing in 2016 and formally launched in 2018, supported by The Nature Conservancy and the Conservation Coalition of Oklahoma. A constant challenge they faced was lack of knowledge available to the general public. To solve this they created Okies for Monarchs, whose focus was educating the masses. In this case, the programs existed before the official nonprofit organization––in other words, the butterfly came before the caterpillar. Following the substantial growth of both programs, OMS officially launched its nonprofit organization in 2024, bringing OMPC and Okies for Monarchs under its umbrella. Hawk describes the difference between OMPC and Okies for Monarchs as OMPC being the “behind-the-scenes” effort. The program is a collaboration between over 60 partners and environmental experts across the state, all of whom want to support this cause. Okies for Monarchs, on the other hand, is the vehicle that makes educational information more digestible to non-experts and can inspire the public to take action. In the past two years, Okies for Monarchs has attended 82 events, raising awareness about monarch and pollinator conservation and distributing over 4,000 of their own curated regional seed mixes. Each year they host two regional events in rural parts of the state with the help of their partners. They bring resources directly to communities with limited access to native plants and pollinator education. The post Protecting Our Fluttering Neighbors appeared first on Oklahoma Gazette. ...read more read less