International collaboration
The monarch butterfly is an iconic species across North America, routinely migrating up to 3,000 miles between wintering grounds in Mexico and breeding grounds in the eastern U.S. and Canada.
The plight of this shared species has unified conservation efforts across the continent. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works closely with Mexico and Canada to protect the monarch and act strategically to reverse its decline.
North American Trilateral Committee
In 1996, the wildlife conservation agencies of the United States, Mexico and Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing a Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation and Management.
The Trilateral Committee facilitates cooperation and coordination among the wildlife agencies of the three nations to conserve and manage biodiversity, ecosystems and species of mutual interest — including the monarch butterfly. The monarch is listed as a species of special protection in Mexico and as an endangered species under Canada’s federal Species at Risk Act.
Learn more about the Trilateral Committee.
Monarch Conservation Science Partnership
The Monarch Conservation Science Partnership, an interagency working group, brings together leading conservation scientists from the United States, Canada and Mexico to understand and address challenges facing monarchs.
The partnership works to advance shared science priorities, support conservation planning, and help coordinate monitoring the state of monarch butterflies across North America.
The Monarch Monitoring Blitz
The Monarch Monitoring Blitz is the only coordinated North America-wide effort to capture a snapshot of the monarch and milkweed summer distribution. For a 10-day period each summer, people across North America are invited to participate by reporting monarch butterfly sightings, finding milkweed plants and looking for monarch eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises.
The volunteer community scientists who take part in this initiative play a key role in expanding what we know about this species.
Learn more about the International Monarch Monitoring Blitz.
The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
The monarch depends on overwintering habitat in Mexico, where threats include deforestation, illegal logging, climate-change impacts and severe storms. In 1986, Mexico established the 56,000-hectare Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, about the size of Chicago, to protect the forested landscape in central Mexico that serves as the monarchs’ overwintering grounds.
Since 1995, our International Affairs program has worked with government and non-government partners to support conservation actions to protect the monarch butterfly overwintering habitat in the Biosphere Reserve.
Together with our partners, we have prioritized strengthening community capacity and local participation to support sustainable conservation of the forests and watersheds of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.