Plant 800 Saplings to Save Monarch Butterfly Habitat (with 1 free click a day)
Click here free once a day to help: http://greatergood.com/
http://greatergood.com/project/
Millions of Monarch butterflies fly up to 2,000 miles annually from the northern U.S. and Canada to the forests of central Mexico.
For years, their resting places have shrunk, brutal deforestation efforts leaving the remaining stands of pines surrounded by plowed fields and cutover lands.
The Forests for Monarchs Project is making a difference. Since 1997, they have helped local landowners plant more than 6 million trees, and the resulting new forests are greening up the mountainsides as well as helping to restore watersheds. Communities are witnessing the well-being of their families improve as well as watching the butterflies return to locations where they’ve not been seen for a decade or more.
By the end of the 2012 planting season, Forests for Monarchs had successfully planted 375,000 trees (Pseudostrobus Pine, Greggii Pine, and White Cedar) to expand these Monarch butterfly overwintering sites. Another 175,000 were planted to protect Michoacan’s Highland Lakes watershed.
Your click today will add 800 trees to this important project.
Uploaded on Nov 22, 2010
http://www.lchpp.org/
Deforestation is a critical problem in Mexico, affecting over half the country's forests and negatively impacting ecosystems, watersheds and people's well-being. La Cruz Habitat Protection Project (LCHPP) is a successful Mexican project that is responsible for planting 3 million seedling pine and oyamel fir trees in and around the Monarch Biosphere Reserve and its buffer zone. Jose Luis Alvarez Alcala began the project in 1997 and has been working ever since to restore old fields to sustainable forest to improve soil hydrology and economic standards in these rural communities. La Cruz Habitat Protection Project, Inc. is a U.S. non-profit organization dedicated to restoring and managing forests in Michoacán, México and beyond by working in close partnership with LCHPP-Mexico.
LCHPP provides trees free of charge to willing communities and land owners who agree to plant and to care for their new forests. Some of these new forests become plantations from which wood will provide an economic resource for families who live in poverty. Training is given on care and sustainable harvest so the new forests will continue to protect fragile mountainside soils, and provide wildlife habitat and livelihoods for local families for generations into the future.
= new reply since forum marked as read
The Monarchs to most of the 'work', I mainly just worry over them.
I planted milkweed, some in the ground/some in pots. The butterflies lay their eggs on the plants and once the 'crawlers' hatch and start eating I just watch until it starts to look like they are going to eat themselves out of food. This year I bought 4 more plants and those are potted.
Once the caterpillars get pretty big and/or I find them roaming around the patio, I put them into the bug dorm* with some milkweed leaves or if there is enough to spare, actual stems with leaves. (The stems I stick into something like a plastic butter, cool whip type container with the lid on and holes punched into the lid for the stems. Fill the container w/water and put the stems in. Be sure the holes are not too big so the caterpillars can't fall or crawl into them) So they can continue to eat if they're not really ready to make a chrysalis.
Eventually they start crawling around in the tent and finally pick a spot and kind of spend some time there. They are actually making a fine webbing that will hold their chrysalis. Next they will hang upside down in a 'J' shape for maybe a day or so. Then the beautiful green chrysalis will appear. (It actually looks like it breaks out of the caterpillar's skin from the inside. They don't weave a cocoon like some other caterpillars do.) Then you just wait and the butterfly will come out or 'eclose' and hang there while pumping fluid from it's abdomen into the wing veins. The wings dry and they are ready to go! Sometimes they don't get their wings open properly and they dry kind of crumpled or crooked and those are doomed. They won't be able to fly. Supposedly it's possible to feed them sugar water on a cotton ball for the time they would live, but I tried it once and it didn't work. The poor thing just starved I think. So now if I see the bad winged ones I put them in the fridge and freezer. I don't have the heart to just squash them. I get pretty stressed when they start coming out, but most do fine.
The *bug dorm is a little domed screen/nylon tent kind of thing made for keeping insects in. Has a zipper opening on one side. I got mine from a site called Bioquip, but I'm sure you can find them other places. This just started out as a one or two caterpillar kind of hobby and how it's gone nuts! My husband laughs at me when I'm carrying the crawlers from one plant that they've stripped to another that still has leaves. Calls me the Monarch wrangler, lol. Every year I say I'm not going to get so involved and just let them do their own thing, but as soon as they start roaming around the patio I can't stand it and have to pick them up and into the dorm so they don't get stepped on by us or the dogs.
This doesn't go on all year thankfully, for me in SoCalif it's just the winter months mainly. I think last year I had around 30 successfully make it. Oh and they do have predators. While most birds and lizards won't eat them, spiders and wasps will. So you might have some nearly ready caterpillars on the milkweed and next minute they're laying on the ground shrivelled up. I actually saw a jumping spider dragging one off a few days ago!
There are lots of good references, you tube things out there. The Monarch Watch website is one of the best places for info. I'm sure this is more than you ever wanted to know, but that's how I've been doing it. 
Did you forget this? 
I hope so.
Went to see the sanctuaries in Michoacan a few years back: a magical experience.
