Community Profile

Pledge Status

Active

Pledge Date

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Program Year

2026

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Action Item Report

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Town of Black Mountain

Black Mountain , NC

C. Michael Sobol

Mayor

Pledge Summary

The Town of Black Mountain is a small mountain community located in Western North Carolina, 20 minutes outside of Asheville, in the Blue Ridge Mountains with a population of approximately 8,500 full-time residents. The Town continues to commit to restoring and preserving habitats that support the monarch's migration each year, maintaining pollinator-friendly habitat gardens, and maintaining official monarch waystations in four areas of Town. The Town encourages citizens to make a difference for the monarch by planting native milkweed and nectar plants to provide food and habitat for the monarch butterfly in locations where they live, work, learn, play and worship, and to encourage community activities to support and educate citizens on the monarch butterfly.

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Community Spotlight

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Educational Signage at Town's Veterans Park

Educational Signage at Town's Veterans Park placed by an official Monarch Waystation.

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Monarch Waystation at Lake Tomahawk with Sign

Monarch Waystation at Lake Tomahawk with Sign

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Butterfly/Pollinator Habitat at Town Park.

Butterfly/Pollinator Habitat at Town's Veterans Park at an official Monarch Butterfly Waystation.

Action Items Committed for 2026

Communications and Convening

  • Issue a proclamation to raise awareness about the decline of the monarch butterfly and the species’ need for habitat. This proclamation must incorporate a focus on monarch conservation.
  • Launch or maintain a public communication effort to encourage residents to plant monarch gardens at their homes or in their neighborhoods. (If you have community members who speak a language other than English, we encourage you to also communicate in that language; Champion Pledges must communicate in that language.)
  • Engage with community garden groups and urge them to plant native milkweeds and nectar-producing plants.
  • Engage with city parks and recreation, public works, sustainability, and other relevant staff to identify opportunities to revise and maintain mowing programs and milkweed / native nectar plant planting programs.
  • Engage with gardening leaders and partners (e.g., Master Naturalists, Master Gardeners, Nature Centers, Native Plant Society Chapters , other long-standing and influential community leaders) to support monarch butterfly conservation.
  • Engage with developers, planners, landscape architects, and other community leaders and organizers engaged in planning processes to identify opportunities to create monarch habitat.
  • Create a community art project to enhance and promote monarch and pollinator conservation as well as cultural awareness and recognition.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Host or support a native seed or plant sale, giveaway or swap.
  • Facilitate or support a milkweed seed collection and propagation effort.
  • Plant or maintain a monarch and pollinator-friendly demonstration garden at City Hall or another prominent or culturally significant community location.
  • Convert vacant lots to monarch habitat.
  • Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants along roadsides, medians, or public rights-of-way.
  • Launch or maintain an outdoor education program(s) (e.g., at schools, after-school programs, community centers and groups) that builds awareness and creates habitat by engaging students, educators, and the community in planting native milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants (i.e., National Wildlife Federation’s Schoolyard Habitats program and Monarch Mission curriculum).
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.
  • Launch, expand, or continue an invasive species removal program that will support the re-establishment of native habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
  • Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

Systems Change

  • Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.
  • Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.