June 30th | Pollinators Panel: Monarch Butterflies
Western Monarch Experts:
Ole Schell, Audrey Fusco, Elizabeth Weber, & Ray Kolbe
Pollinators Panel: Monarch Butterflies
SUN. JUNE 30TH, 2024 / 3:00 PM– 4:30 PM
*** EVENT CANCELLED DUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES
Film-making, advocacy, education and outreach, art and photography, habitat restoration, volunteer work, and efforts in citizen-science collide as leaders in monarch conservation Ole Schell, Audrey Fusco, Elizabeth Weber, and Ray Kolbe talk monarch butterflies during this exciting panel on one of California’s most famous pollinators. While each is a monarch expert in their own right, the four speakers all approach their passion for monarch butterflies in different ways.
Ole Schell
Ole Schell, moved by the precipitous decline in the Western Monarch Butterfly population, established the West Marin Monarch Sanctuary on his family cattle ranch on the coast in Northern California. The West Marin Monarch Sanctuary's mission is to protect the existing monarch population by providing a food source for their rebound. Schell and the sanctuary see advocacy as part of their mission, doing extensive press outreach, museum and gallery shows on the art and science of monarchs, and engaging in education for children and adults. He's also made a short documentary about converting working agricultural land into habitat for not only monarch butterflies, but pollinators at large.
Audrey Fusco
Audrey Fusco is the Restoration Ecologist and Native Plant Nursery Manager for the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network in Marin County. She focuses on restoring habitat for all of the wildlife that use riparian corridors, including pollinators such as the endangered Western monarch butterfly. Additionally, Fusco helps schools in Marin County create habitat gardens on their school grounds.
Elizabeth Weber
Elizabeth Weber is an independent documentary photographer who focuses on ecological issues, in relation to both nature’s degradation and its healing. Through her work on the western monarch butterfly, she hopes to raise awareness about the species population decline and offer ways for people to help monarchs. She has collaborated with poets, conservationists and non-profits and is dedicated to working with people who are creating positive change in their communities and the environment.
Ray Kolbe
Ray Kolbe initiated the project to beautify the Santa Monica Creek trail with the goal of creating habitat for pollinators, and in particular, the monarch butterfly. In 2023, Kolbe enlisted the assistance of six others to form the Pollinator Habitat project, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating, preserving, and expanding pollinator habitats in the community. The current goal of this organization is to complete the existing work on pollinator habitat along Santa Monica Creek, with the hope of later expanding to city-owned trails in Carpinteria and other nearby communities (especially urban communities with lesser amounts of viable habitat).
Join us for an inspirational and educational panel on monarch butterflies in the Second Floor Valley Oak Gallery. Tickets are $5 for members, and $10 for non-members.