How to make money by saving monarch butterflies
The monarch butterflies have had a tough row to hoe. Twenty years back their fleet was a billion strong, a few years ago they were down to some 33 million. And while the last few years have seen an uptick in numbers, their future remains perilous. With a changing landscape thanks to development and modern agriculture practices, among other things, the all-important milkweed and food flowers that these royal pollinators rely on are dwindling, leaving them no place to lay their eggs and little to eat.
“These are the kinds of plants typically found in native prairie, roadsides, in the middle of farms. But in the last 20 years farming has changed,” says Eric Holst, the associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) working lands program. “It’s become a much more intensive activity, herbicide technology has allowed farms to be much more weed free. That provides benefits to farmers, but it has an unintended negative effect on populations of butterflies and other pollinators.”
There are a number of efforts underway to try and reverse the drop in monarch numbers, including the USDA asking farmers to volunteer portions of their land to establish milkweed habitat, writes Andrew Amelinckx for Modern Farmer. And now EDF is coming to the rescue by adding more of a market-driven program to the mix. Called a habitat exchange, Amelinckx explains it as something like a carbon market, “where landowners, farmers, and ranchers, get paid for restoring or improving monarch habitat either by entities like corporations or government agencies that need to mitigate their impact to wildlife, or by organizations and individuals who are interested in protecting monarch habitat.”
“It’s a venue to connect buyers and sellers of conservation services,” says Holst.
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/how-make-money-saving-monarch-butterflies.html
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When I started converting my 1.5 acre backyard to permaculture, I decided to include a quarter acre of prairie restoration for wildlife and pollinator habitat. It also sated my hoarding tendency by allowing me to collect hundreds of species of wildflowers 
Anyway, I started my plots with seed when I realized native prairie plug packs cost over $100/38 plants!
http://www.prairiemoon.com/plants/potted-plants/mix-and-match.html
I sourced the exact same plastic flats online and purchased 100 of them for only $3/flat. Quality potting soil is dirt cheap (haha) and I make my own compost. I was already collecting massive amounts of free native seed from local prairie remnants for my own yard plantings, so I had a free source of propagation material. I also have permission to collect from the state arboretum's plantings for seed, so long as I only take small amounts. In one year I collected 40 species of native grasses and flowers. I already have a 6x8 ft greenhouse in the backyard for my vegetables to start seed in. In another year or two, my own yard will be supplying the seed I need.
If started in early April in my greenhouse, I can have saleable-sized plants by Sept., which is a great time to plant perennials anyway. Anything that doesn't get sold is potted up and overwintered in the garden for sale next year.
I can sell my 36-cell flats for $40 each via Craigslist and fliers around town (it is a liberal college town with lots of yards already landscaped to natives and raingarden plantings, so there is plenty of demand). Since I do this for fun and for the satisfaction of improving the environment, my time is free. Besides, I have free labor in the form of a 5-yr old daughter who loves helping in the gardens
Whatever money I make goes into a college savings account for her.
