Since we started our campaign to protect monarch butterflies from deadly herbicides, 1,887 generous activists like you have donated to help support our all-out effort to save them.

Will you chip in $5 or more to help monarchs?

But this fight is only just beginning, and we need to know you've got our backs as we pour more resources into this campaign.

With your support, we'll be one step closer to securing the funds we need to win.

Thank you.

Francis Beinecke

Monarch butterflies are in crisis, and NRDC is launching an all-out campaign to save them.

We’ll be taking on some of the most powerful companies on the planet: Monsanto, Dow and other makers of the herbicides that are obliterating monarchs.

Will you help us stand up to them by lending your generous financial support today?

The annual migration of monarchs is one of the most astounding and awe-inspiring on Earth -- but it’s now on the brink of collapse.

For countless generations, hundreds of millions of monarchs across North America have made an epic journey to a single spot in Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains. This year, a mere 33.5 million monarchs made it to Mexico -- an all-time record low.

The main culprit is a potent weed killer called glyphosate. Its use began skyrocketing in the late 1990s when Monsanto introduced “Roundup Ready” corn and soybeans, which are resistant to its Roundup herbicide (Monsanto’s version of glyphosate).

Thanks to an explosion of these genetically modified crops, Big Ag is dumping more of these weed killers than ever on fields across America -- some 182 million pounds annually!

And all that spraying is decimating the one plant that monarchs need to survive: milkweed.

That’s why NRDC has just filed an urgent Petition with the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding that it rein in the alarming overuse of herbicides that are wiping out monarchs.

But to save these small and vulnerable marvels of nature, we’ll have to face down agri-tech giants like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont and Bayer. They are not likely to accept limits on the use of glyphosate without one heck of a fight.

With your support, we’ll sound the alarm about the monarch’s urgent plight ... build powerful public pressure on EPA to act swiftly ... and shine a spotlight on the role that Monsanto and other agri-tech giants are playing in the monarch’s decline.

We’ll also be going state-by-state, calling on transportation departments to stop spraying glyphosate along highways and to start planting “safe corridors” -- filled with milkweed -- to sustain monarchs on their journey. You can be sure we will defend our environment in the most effective way possible.

With far fewer monarchs wintering in Mexico this year, that means far fewer monarchs in our gardens and backyards come summer.

I can’t imagine a summer -- or a world -- without monarch butterflies. It’s not too late to stop their decline -- but we need your support right now to act swiftly and decisively on their behalf.

Thank you for joining me today in standing up for monarchs.

Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council