12/16/2024
All pollinators are important for food production! It is great to see elevated work and focus in this area.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced a proposal to list the Monarch Butterfly as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Returning monarch butterflies to sustainable levels of abundance will require many different contributors to protect and restore habitat over broad areas.
Because of the diversity and scale of lands managed by utilities, including millions of acres needed for new solar and transmission to meet renewable energy goals, monarch and pollinator conservation is a relevant issue for the energy sector. However, tradeoffs between energy and pollinators are not always clear. It is challenging to generalize the potential for monarch conservation actions on energy lands because of the scale and distribution of company land assets, overarching requirements for reliable and affordable energy, and the lack of tools to easily assess lands in relation to monarch habitat.
EPRI has been working directly with energy companies, conservation groups, and agencies to consider approaches that support monarchs and other pollinators, including development of a GIS-based Monarch Habitat Model, testing remote milkweed detection, field studies, and understanding barriers to voluntary conservation actions under the Endangered Species Act. We look forward to collaborating on creative solutions to realize a clean energy future that supports monarchs and other pollinators. We invite you to reach out to us as we move forward together.
For more information, visit https://ow.ly/U4GI50UpW3g or contact [email protected]
