The Monarch Joint Venture is excited to welcome the Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR) to the MJV Partner Network. For over 30 years, the Friends of the Mississippi River has worked to protect, restore and enhance the Mississippi River and the surrounding land in the Twin Cities area. In 2024, FMR restored 2,158 acres of habitat, with 39 active restoration sites from Elk River to Hastings.
FMR’s restoration work comes with many benefits to local pollinators, meeting all four pillars of the Monarch Joint Venture’s work: education, habitat, science, and partnerships. Their habitat work includes prairie and savanna restoration to benefit pollinators, and they use habitat areas for education and to collect data for research, monitoring, and community science programs, including the Monarch Joint Venture’s Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program (IMMP).
FMR uses the program as part of its Pollinator Evaluation Program (PEP), which helps FMR assess the impact of restoration work at three Minnesota restoration sites: William H. Houlton Conservation Area in Elk River, Vermillion River Linear Park in Hastings, and River Heights Park in Inver Grove Heights.
As an MJV partner, FMR is excited to connect with others studying monarchs and collaborate on monarch research projects while offering its own expertise in pollinator biology and sampling methods, as well as research design, analysis, and conservation applications.
For more information about the Friends of the Mississippi River, please visit fmr.org.
The Monarch Joint Venture is a 501c3 nonprofit organization and a national partner network of federal and state agencies, non-governmental organizations, businesses, and academic programs working together to conserve the monarch butterfly migration. The content in this article does not necessarily reflect the positions of all Monarch Joint Venture partners. Photos courtesy of Friends of the Mississippi River.