Community Profile

Pledge Status

Did Not Report

Pledge Date

Friday, April 28, 2023

Program Year

2023

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Action Item Report

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City of Westmount

Westmount, Quebec, AL

Christina Smith

Mayor

Pledge Summary

The City of Westmount is an independently governed city located on the island of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. Westmount is home to a population of approximately 20 000 residents, on roughly 4 square km. The City is a green urban oasis nestled on the Westmount Summit mountain peak and includes a large natural forest, 13 official parks, community gardens and numerous other green spaces for residents to enjoy. Westmount is proud to have a Monarch Butterfly demonstration garden in our largest and most prominent park. A Seed Lending library offers Milkeweed and other seed pollinator blends to residents free of charge. Westmount also has its own pollinator beehive which is funded by the sale of honey each fall. Mayor Smith signed the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge in 2021, and is excited to continue to engage our staff and community in building habitat and raising awareness around the Monarch [GJ1] Butterfly and other pollinators.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2023

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 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.
  • 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

  • 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.
  • Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants along roadsides, medians, or public rights-of-way.
  • Host or support a monarch neighborhood challenge to engage neighborhoods and homeowners' associations within the community to increase awareness, support community unity around a common mission, and/or create habitat for the monarch butterfly.
  • 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

  • Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.
  • Remove milkweed from the list of noxious plants in city weed / landscaping ordinances (if applicable).
  • Change weed or mowing ordinances to allow for native prairie and plant habitats.
  • Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.
  • 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.
  • Launch, expand, or continue one or more ordinances to reduce light pollution to benefit urban wildlife.