Take Action

Homeowners Associations

Work with your neighbors to add natives to your HOA’s list of permissible plants, especially milkweed that sustains monarch butterflies, which are often classified as nuisance plants. For these examples and other positive efforts, check out Greening Your Homeowner’s Association.

Cities, Towns, or Counties

Reach out to your local municipality to enact policies so more native plants are installed across their towns, cities, and counties. For example, West Norriton Township in PA, passed a resolution that all properties owned or managed by the township use a minimum of 80 percent native plants in new plantings. Get ideas to incentivize homeowners and other landowners to transform their land into wildlife habitats in the Guide to Passing Wildlife-Friendly Property Maintenance Ordinances.

Learn how local advocates bridge the divide between local governments and gardeners regarding weed ordinances.

Consider joining or starting a Community Wildlife Habitat™ to help your town become healthier, sustainable, and more wildlife-friendly and support these policy changes.

Mayors’ Monarch Pledge

Through the National Wildlife Federation's Mayors' Monarch Pledge, U.S. cities, municipalities, and other communities are committing to create habitat for the monarch butterfly and pollinators, and to educate residents about how they can make a difference at home and in their community. Select pledge actions support enacting policies and ordinances to support native pollinator plantings. Tell Your Local Leader to Take a Pledge for Monarchs.

Rally your state legislature to support state laws that allow property owners to install and manage natural, native landscapes. Examples include laws in Florida, Minnesota, Maryland and New Jersey. North Carolina passed a law that requires native plants at state parks, historic sites, and roadways.

Approximately half of National Wildlife Federation’s network of state affiliates are working to support similar practices and legislation in their own states. State affiliates have also enacted Federation resolutions to support NWF’s policy stance on actions that support native plants, pollinators, no neonicotinoid use, and other related topics.

NWF teams work to secure bipartisan support with Senate and House lawmakers for polices that support real change. Educate and urge your Congressional representatives to act and support this legislation. Sign up for NWF Action Alerts as new legislation arises.

Expanded Use and Supply of Native Plants

April has been designated as Native Plant Month and several other native bills are in the works.

Learn more about The Colossal Need for Native Seed and National Wildlife Federation efforts to support the National Seed Strategy. This includes a framework to advocate for appropriate and adequate native seed and plants to be available for wildlife recovery, carbon sequestration, and climate resiliency nationwide.

NWF pushed for inclusion of funding and preference for native plant resources in bills like Recovering America’s Wildlife Act and The Farm Bill.

Pollinator, Monarch, and Bird Recovery

National Wildlife Federation has been leading efforts in the Monarch and Pollinator Recovery since 2015. We continue to work with conservation allies to research and advance positions and support laws that benefit wildlife and people in the following areas:

• Monarch ESA Listing
  Horticultural and Agricultural Industry Practices
• Pollinator Friendly Plant Labeling
• Banning Harmful Chemical Use
  Pesticides and Herbicides
• Grasslands Act
  Saving our North American Grasslands, a crucially important ecosystem disappearing faster than the Amazon rainforest and one of the most imperiled ecosystems in the world.
• Corridors and Roadsides
• Natural Climate Solutions
• Climate Change and Communities

Resource Allocation to Green Infrastructure and Nature-based Solutions

NWF’s new Natural Infrastructure Center for Environmental Justice and Resilience Center (NICER) helps facilitate the policy, education, and application of natural infrastructure and builds community awareness and capacity to implement solutions at the local level. By addressing the multitude of barriers to acquiring funding and implementing projects, NICER will help ensure this influx of federal funding will make a lasting impact on the climate, communities, and wildlife. Stayed tuned for ways to support these efforts.