About the Butterflyway Project
The Butterflyway Project is a citizen-led movement that’s bringing nature home to neighbourhoods throughout Canada, one butterfly-friendly planting at a time.
The Butterflyway Project began in five cities in 2017. We recruited a team of volunteer Butterflyway Rangers in each community. Their mission: to plant networks of native wildflowers in yards, schoolyards, streets and parks.
To establish a Butterflyway, Rangers must plant at least a dozen pollinator patches in their neighbourhood. Each Butterflyway gets an official sign and recognition on our website and maps.
In the past two years, Butterflyway Rangers connected with local schools, city agencies and homeowners. They planted thousands of wildflowers in hundreds of pollinator patches, establishing Butterflyways in nine neighbourhoods and cities!
In 2019, we are bringing Butterflyway joy to new neighbourhoods, recruiting new Rangers in B.C. and Quebec and re-engaging past Rangers in the Greater Toronto Area.
The Butterflyway Project shows that a small group of residents can make a big difference for bees and butterflies. Check out the stories below to get inspired!
If you don’t live in a current Butterflyway community, the resource list below will help you find out how you can bring butterflies home to your neighbourhood, one fun planting at a time.
The Butterflyway Project is based on our Homegrown National Park Project, which began in 2013. That award-winning, citizen-led project created butterfly-friendly corridors in three Toronto neighbourhoods. It established dozens of pollinator patches in parks, front yard rain gardens and schoolyard canoe planters.
British Columbia Butterflyways
Ontario Butterflyways
Resources
A starter guide to creating a Butterflyway through your neighbourhood
If you grow it, they will come!
As our communities continue to grow, local butterflies and bees are losing natural spaces to eat, sleep and raise their young. This guide includes seven steps to begin bringing nature home to your garden.
How to plant a canoe in your neighbourhood
Here is a conversation-starting way to welcome local bees and butterflies: Plant a Butterflyway canoe garden!
Torontonian Aidan Dahlin Nolan dreamt up the idea of filling canoes with butterfly-friendly plants when he volunteered with the David Suzuki Foundation’s Homegrown National Park Project. Here are his six steps.
Mayors' monarch pledge
Become a monarch-friendly community!
Communities across North America are taking action to help save the monarch butterfly. Contact your mayor and/or local government agency and ask them to come on board!
Our partners
