One Final Year End Appeal: Please Donate to the Native Plant Conservation Campaign! Help us fight for Native Plants and Life on Earth

Dear native plant conservation advocate:

Despite the seemingly ceaseless stress, anxiety and disruption that has characterized 2020, the native plant and scientific communities achieved some stunning achievements this year.

Here in the U.S., thanks to your support and hard work, we are making unprecedented progress with groundbreaking native plant conservation initiatives both on Capitol Hill and in the states (see below)! And we did that all with a hostile anti-science Trump administration in Washington, DC

Now as we transition into a new era in Washington, we need your support more than ever to not only keep this momentum going but also achieve even more substantial results.

Did you know that in 2020?

Three Bipartisan Pro-Native Plant Bills were introduced in Congress:

In February, Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced the Native Plant Species Pilot Program Act( H.R. 6024) in the House of Representatives to protect and preserve native plant species and fight invasive plants in U.S. national parks. There is already a companion bill (S. 3150) in the Senate.
The National Parks bill joins the Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2019 (MPH, Act; S 2918). That legislation would establish a federal grant program to assist state departments of transportation and Indian tribes to carry out pollinator-friendly practices on roadsides and highway rights-of-way.
These bills follow the “Botany Bill” (the Botanical Sciences and Native Plant Materials Research, Restoration, and Promotion Act, H.R. 1572/S. 2384), first introduced in 2016, which seeks to improve funding and support for federal botany programs and increase research into locally appropriate native plants.

All three bills explicitly call for priority to be given to locally adapted native plants in land management in order best to conserve and restore wildlife habitat and deliver ecosystem services such as water and air purification, greenhouse gas sequestration, and buffering of floods and severe weather. We expect these bills to be reintroduced in the new Congress, and with a new Administration, and your support, we have every hope that they will become law!

Support for the National Seed Strategy grew:

In 2015, by adopting the historic National Seed Strategy, the U.S. became the first country on the planet to prioritize the use of locally adapted native plants in the restoration and other management of federal lands. We have asked the incoming Biden administration to fully fund the Seed Strategy when they take office in January, leading to a virtual revolution in native plant conservation, particularly in the use of native plants better to protect us from and help us recover from disasters such as climate change driven wildfires and hurricanes. With your help, we look forward to making the Seed Strategy a reality.

We helped to Get Out the Vote for Plants and Wildlife:

The Native Plant Conservation Campaign and partners strengthened our Get Out the Wild Vote Toolkit initiative for the 2020 elections! Native plant societies, botanic gardens, and wildlife organizations all worked hard together to help us ‘Get Out The Vote’ in this historic election. We registered more than one thousand voters and helped get them their ballots as well as to the polls all over the U.S.

A major reason all these initiatives have moved forward in 2020 is the role of the Native Plant Conservation Campaign in demonstrating broad support for native plant conservation in the U.S.

For example, we coauthored a January 2020 letter in the journal Science “Fund Plant Conservation to Solve Biodiversity Crisis” along with an unprecedented coalition of partner plant conservation groups. The letter called for increased funding for conservation and restoration of native plant communities. As of December 2020, over 90 businesses, scientific societies, faith and other organizations have signed on in support of greater funding for plant conservation.

These are only a few examples of the progress the Native Plant Conservation Campaign has spearheaded in 2020. With the new Administration, House and Senate, and WITH YOUR SUPPORT we look forward to even more significant achievements in 2021!

Donate to the Native Plant Conservation Campaign – Help Plants and the People who Fight for Them!

Donate to the Native Plant Conservation Campaign by going to the DONATE page on our website or by filling out this donation form and sending us a check.

O $25 O $50 O $100 O $250 O $500

O Other _______________

Your donations to the Native Plant Conservation Campaign are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

To Donate by Check

Checks can be made to:

Native Plant Conservation Campaign

PMB 151

1459 18th Street

San Francisco, CA 94107

To Donate Online

Please go to www.plantsocieties.org and click the DONATE button at the top of any page.

Feel free to contact our development manager if you have any questions. You can reach him by e-mail (danf@plantsocieties.org) or by phone at 415-531-4428.

Thank you for your attention and generosity,

Dr. Emily B. Roberson

Director

Native Plant Conservation Campaign

p.s. One of the challenging issues we will be tackling in 2021 is the trafficking of imperiled plants. This issue has gained new prominence because trafficked wildlife may have contributed to the pandemic. See this report for an early example of our work with partners on this.

Thank you and let us work together towards a greener and more hopeful 2021!

	Powered by YMLP.com