Community Profile

Pledge Status

Did Not Report

Pledge Date

Monday, March 22, 2021

Program Year

2021

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Action Item Report

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City of Riverside

Riverside, CA

Patricia Lock Dawson

Mayor of Riverside, CA

Pledge Summary

Riverside is a city in Inland Southern California with a population of roughly 326,000. The city is home to the historic Mission Inn Hotel & Spa and the beautiful Santa Ana River and UCR Botanical Gardens. Mayor Lock Dawson of Riverside, CA has committed to saving the monarch butterfly and other pollinators with their signing of the Mayors' Monarch Pledge and looks forward to engaging residents in building more pollinator habitat throughout the city.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2021

Communications and Convening

  • 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.
  • 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.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Facilitate or support a milkweed seed collection and propagation effort.
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.
  • Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

Systems Change

  • Remove milkweed from the list of noxious plants in city weed / landscaping ordinances (if applicable).
  • Launch, expand, or continue an effort to change municipal planting ordinances and practices to include more native milkweed and native nectar producing plants at city properties.