Photo by Kyle Glennon Unsplash
More than 45 transportation and energy companies, as well as dozens of private landowners, have agreed to create or maintain monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) habitat along “rights-of-way” corridors across the United States.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) have signed a historic agreement that allows participant landholders to dedicate some portion of their lands to monarch conservation management.
In the agreement, the USFWS provides assurance that the participant landowners will not be required to take additional conservation measures on their total enrolled lands (including land outside of the dedicated conservation areas) if the monarch butterfly later becomes listed as an endangered species.
The USFWS is set to decide in December 2020 if the monarch butterfly will be classified as a federally endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.
Full article https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/historic-agreement-gives-monarch-butterflies-the-right-of-way/