This November, Monarch Joint Venture (MJV) partner organizations came together at the University of Texas at San Antonio for two days of learning, planning for the next year of monarch conservation, and partnership building.
Since 2009, the MJV has brought together partners from across the United States in a unified effort to conserve the monarch migration. As a leader in monarch conservation, the MJV supports conservation planning and implementation efforts on a broad scale by facilitating information sharing, partnership building, and carrying out identified conservation priorities. The MJV has grown dramatically, now comprising of over 70 partners. This diverse partnership ranges from government agencies, to NGOs, to businesses, to academic institutions, and works together to implement science-based conservation actions.
The MJV Annual Meeting serves as an opportunity for MJV Partners to come together to learn from one another and find opportunities to collaborate. Over 40 organizations participated in the meeting, with more than 80 people in attendance (pictured above). Partners shared stories and results of their monarch conservation projects in the MJV’s three focus areas: Education and Outreach, Habitat Conservation and Restoration, and Research and Monitoring. These stories and results, in the form of over 30 lightning talks, set the groundwork for networking, brainstorming and partnership around future and ongoing monarch conservation efforts.
MJV partners also contributed to refining and updating the 2018 Monarch Conservation Implementation Plan at the meeting. This annually updated plan serves as a framework to guide conservation planning for individuals, partners, or other interested stakeholders nationally. The 2018 plan will be available by early 2018, and the current plan can be found here. Any individual or entity is encouraged to use this plan to identify and integrate priority monarch conservation actions into existing or planned efforts.
Each year, the MJV Annual Meeting is a vibrant example of the growing network of partners working together to support the monarch migration for future generations. Scaling-up monarch conservation to support sustainable eastern and western populations is a huge feat, but the support from our growing partnership provides hope that we can meet the challenge ahead. Everyone can take part in this growing movement. Find out how you can get involved and support monarch conservation today!
For more information on the MJV and our partnership, please visit our website, or contact the MJV Coordinator, Wendy Caldwell at monarchs@monarchjointventure.org.