Advocates representing Tribal nations met with members of Congress to discuss a range of priorities including wildlife habitat connectivity, grassland conservation, and native seed sovereignty.

Kim Sager-Fradkin, Wildlife Program Manager for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in Washington State, spoke with congressional offices about wildlife connectivity legislation.

“We are seeing first-hand the consequences of habitat fragmentation due to housing development and highways,” stated Sager-Fradkin.

She noted that habitat fragmentation affects the long-term genetic health of wildlife populations, explaining, “Recent research shows that cougars on the Olympic Peninsula have lower genetic diversity than cougars elsewhere in Washington State, which could portend trouble for the future.”

Sager-Fradkin also emphasized the importance of passing the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA), which would provide critical funding for Indigenous-led conservation efforts. “Please encourage your Congressional representatives to support wildlife movement bills as well as RAWA for the good of the next seven generations,” she stated.

Merissa Dominguez, Program Director for the Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance, highlighted how Tribal leadership is shaping the future of grassland conservation through support for the North American Grasslands Conservation Act. This bill would provide designated funding to Tribal nations for grassland conservation and include Tribal representation on the program’s governing council.

With more than 70 percent of America’s tallgrass, mixed grass, and shortgrass prairies already lost, grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems in North America. These landscapes serve as critical habitat for wildlife and places of immense cultural significance for Indigenous communities.

“This legislation recognizes the deep connection Tribes have to these landscapes and the importance of supporting Indigenous leadership in conservation,” Dominguez stated, “I’m grateful for the opportunity to advocate for this work and help raise awareness about the importance of protecting our grasslands for future generations.”

Katie Smith-Easter, Indigenous Land Stewardship Coordinator for the Southeastern Grasslands Institute and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma echoed Dominguez’s emphasis on the connections between Indigenous communities, native seeds, and grasslands.

“For Native people, our cultural identity is not separate from the land that holds us,” she stated. “The continuity of our cultural lifeways does not exist without our native seeds and grasslands.”

Smith-Easter advocated for policies including the Native American Seeds Act, the American Seed and Restoration Center Establishment Act, and the North American Grasslands Conservation Act, emphasizing the importance of strengthening native seed systems and Indigenous stewardship efforts across Turtle Island.

“Our country faces a critical native seed shortage, and our grasslands are disappearing at an alarming rate,” Smith-Easter stated. “Twenty five years will be too late. We need to act now.”

Throughout the fly-in, advocates shared how Indigenous knowledge, Tribal sovereignty, and investment in Tribal-led conservation are essential to addressing threats facing wildlife, ecosystems, and communities.

As policymakers consider conservation legislation in the months ahead, the voices shared during the Tribal Advocacy Fly-In served as a reminder that protecting wildlife and ecosystems also means supporting the communities that have cared for them since time immemorial.

Once you learn to read those signals, planting for specific pollinator groups becomes easy. Here, we’ll teach you all you need to know to join the conversation!

Pollination Syndromes: How Plants Advertise to Pollinators

Not all plants are pollinated by animals, but about 90% of flowering plants have evolved to attract animal pollinators specifically. It benefits a plant species to focus on one pollinator or a group of pollinators. If all flowers shared the same pollinators, there’s a good chance a lot of pollen will be wasted as the animals visit every other flower species around.

Botanists call these signal patterns ‘pollination syndromes’: predictable traits that reveal which pollinator the flower is courting. Four of these traits do the most talking:

1. Shape: Tube length, opening angle, whether there is space to land
2. Color: Whatever is brightest in the target pollinator’s spectral vision
3. Scent: Sweet, musky fermented, or absent entirely
4. Timing: Day or night openings, seasonal peak

These rules aren’t ironclad (and plenty of flowers are visited by multiple pollinators), but they’re good indicators for who’s meant to show up. Here’s how these traits sort among six groups of pollinators.

Flowers that Attract Bees

Bees are the workhorses of pollination, and was the first species group to evolve as pollination specialists. Flowers built for them tend to be generous with nectar and easy to use.

• Shape: open bowls, landing platforms, or short tubes they can wedge into
• Color: yellow, blue, and purple
• Scent: fresh, sweet, pleasant, strong floral perfumes
• Timing: warm daytime hours (bees turn sluggish below about 55°F, so temperature matters)

Native examples: penstemon, goldenrod, sunflower, and baby blue eyes

Flowers that Attract Butterflies

Butterflies forage mostly by sight and can’t hover, so they need flashy flowers that double as a landing strip. Many flowers built for butterflies also end up attracting some bees.

• Shape: flat, clustered flowers that act as a runway, or long narrow tubes that match a coiled proboscis
• Color: bold pinks, oranges, and purples (butterflies can see muted reds that most bees miss!)
• Scent: faint to mild; showy color is more important
• Timing: daytime in full sun, since most butterflies need to bask before they can fly well

Native examples: Joe-pye weed, butterfly weed, coneflower, and blazing star

Flowers that Attract Moths

When the bees clock out, the moths clock in. In fact, moths evolved from butterflies and took the night shift to take advantage of nectar resources when butterflies aren’t active. Color is far less important than scent for night foragers.

• Shape: long narrow tubes for hovering hawkmoths; open dishes for smaller settling moths
• Color: white, pale pink, or dull yellow (colors that hold light at dusk and catch moonlight)
• Scent: strong and sweet, often released only after dark
• Timing: open or fragrant at dusk and through the night, with many closing by morning

Native examples: phlox, yucca, wild tobacco, and evening primrose

Flowers that Attract Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds, like many birds, have an underdeveloped sense of smell, but unlike most of our other pollinators, they can see red. Hummingbirds are also burn fuel very fast, so their flowers are bright, sugar-rich, and built to keep insects out.

• Shape: long narrow tubes, often tilted down or outward, that exclude most insects
• Color: bright red, orange, and hot pink (birds see red; most insect competitors don’t)
• Scent: little to none
• Timing: daytime, especially mornings and late afternoons when hummingbirds are most active, with nectar refilled often

Native examples: cardinal flower, wax currant, trumpet vine, trumpet honeysuckle

Flowers that Attract Bats

In the American Southwest and the tropics, nectar-feeding bats pollinate many important plants—including the agave behind your margarita! Because bats are much larger than other pollinators, flowers signaling for bats must provide a large amount of dilute nectar.

• Shape: large, robust, bowl- or bell-shaped flowers; many must be sturdy enough for a bat to rest, but some bats hover
• Color: pale white, green, or purple (because bats navigate with echolocation rather than sight, color barely matters)
• Scent: strong, musky, fermented, sometimes sulfurous
• Timing: open at night, often for a single night

Native examples: agave, saguaro, organ pipe cactus, and desert willow

Flowers that Attract Carrion Flies

Not every pollinator wants a sweet reward. Some flowers court carrion flies by impersonating exactly what flies love—rot. These flowers do not reward their pollinators with nectar. They don’t even produce nectar!

• Shape: deep, trap-like flowers that mimic carrion or dung
• Color: dull maroon, brown, mottled green, or speckled to mimic corpses and rot
• Scent: strongly putrid, like rotting meat or feces
• Timing: day or night, depending on species; flies stay active in cool, cloudy weather

Native examples: pawpaw, skunk cabbage, wild ginger, and red trillium

A Pollinator-Plant Cheat Sheet

Use this cheat sheet to learn the language of plants and pollinators!

Invite Pollinators to Your Garden

You don’t need to court every pollinator on this list (and depending on where you live, you couldn’t). The point is to plant with intention: choose natives that match the pollinators already in your region, and aim for a range of colors, shapes, and bloom times so something is always advertising!

Check out NWF’s Native Plant Finder to see which native plants support the most butterflies and moths where you live!

With the gratuitous rise of artificial intelligence (AI), tech companies are quickly trying to build the infrastructure needed to power these hubs. New data centers are popping up across the country, with large-scale data centers requiring enormous amounts of electricity to run around the clock.

That growth presents a challenge. Without careful and thoughtful planning, this AI-fueled energy demand can put pressure on the grid and increase costs for families and businesses—in fact, it already is. Last year, utilities received requests from data centers for at least 700 gigawatts (GW) of power connection.

It’s important to understand this number because the entire country’s average power generation is only around 500 GW. Even if some of these projects are never built, the requests still lead to a ramp-up in energy infrastructure including power plants, transmission lines, and transformers. And those costs are passed on to households and businesses.

Clean energy has become the cheapest form of energy, but wind and solar still only account for 17 percent of the country’s energy generation. The biggest barrier to deploying clean energy is usually transmission. Without enough transmission to deliver cheaper clean energy to where it’s needed, over 900 GW of solar and wind projects sit waiting in queue, and utilities often default to more expensive fossil fuel generation instead.

In this moment where Americans are feeling the squeeze of rising electricity bills, expensive groceries, and high prices at the pump, we need to fully invest in an energy system that is more affordable, more resilient, and more reliable than the one we have today. Clean energy is central to that solution.

Renewables Remains the Cheapest Form of Energy

For years, clean energy was framed as something we should invest in for the future. Well, the future is here and we are unprepared.

The good news is that renewable energy like wind and solar, when paired with battery storage, remains the most cost-effective form of new-build energy generation even without tax subsidies. Plus, there’s no volatile gas price or imported fuel cost to worry about. The sun shines. The wind blows. And when they don’t, we can tap into the energy stored in the system’s batteries. That helps protect customers from the price spikes that fossil fuel markets and international conflicts bring.

Beyond wind and solar, emerging technologies like next-generation geothermal can play an important role. It taps into the Earth’s internal heat to generate electricity, using underground heat, instead of coal or natural gas, to drive steam to spin the turbines. That heat is free, non-emitting, and endlessly renewable.

What makes it “next-generation” is its potential to go beyond traditional geothermal resources which are limited to specific locations. New drilling technologies allow next-generation geothermal to be developed in more places and deliver power more locally. Continued research and development are needed, but the opportunity is clear—dependable, non-polluting power available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Clean Energy Gives Us More Options, Not Fewer

Extreme weather is becoming more frequent and more expensive. Heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires, and winter freezes are testing aging energy infrastructure across the country. A more resilient, well-connected grid is better equipped to respond.

Solar paired with battery storage can keep power flowing when the grid is strained during peak demand. Distributed energy resources like rooftop solar and community solar can reduce some pressure on the grid, especially at the local level.

Wind generation often complements solar production across seasons and times of day. Together, these technologies create a more flexible system that can adapt when conditions change.

Opponents of clean energy question whether it’s reliable enough. But reliability is about building a balanced system with multiple sources working together. That means combining wind and solar with battery storage, transmission upgrades, demand flexibility (especially from large electricity users like data centers), geothermal, and other cleaner, non-polluting technologies. It also means modernizing the grid so it can move electricity where and when it’s needed. 

A Healthy Environment and Economic Growth Can Co-Exist

It is a misconception that we have to sacrifice innovation and economic prosperity for a healthy planet. Clean energy is increasingly what makes economic growth possible. As electricity demand rises, we have a choice.

We can double down on outdated systems that pollute our air and water and drive up prices, or we can invest in the resilient energy solutions that have proven to be the cheapest, build the grid needed to deliver them, and ensure the largest electricity users pay their fair share of the costs they trigger.

Our future depends on it.

Constance Stancil, one of National Wildlife Federation’s Longleaf Landowner Mentors, hosted attendees at her family’s property, the Major Mattocks Real Estate Trust Family Farm. The Landowner Mentorship Model engages landowners that have been successful in restoring longleaf pine on their land to share lessons and sustainable management techniques, as Constance did here.

“It’s important that [landowners] see [model farms] for the same reason that Zakia and I saw [Mr. Hodges’s] farm,” Stancil says. “We saw what was possible, and we saw what happens if you work together. But we also had a chance to physically see the trees grow at different stages. . . . So, if people see the possibilities of what can happen on their land, and we expose them to different resources like that training we went to in Georgia and the training that was here in North Carolina, [they can acquire] a lot of information about the different resources that are out there.”

Honoring Ancestors Through Knowledge Sharing

The three-day workshop detailed everything from heirs’ property to non-traditional economic opportunities like carbon markets. The values of forest conservation for some landowners transcend pure financial returns, including the wildlife habitat value, aesthetics of the property, and familial bonds through shared experience. For many, there’s the peace one gains from walking through these forests and, for families like the Mattocks, the knowing it’s the land your ancestors walked, fought for, and won.

“My heart, my soul, is rooted in the dirt on that land,” Stancil says. “Everything I am, who I am now, started there.”

The Mattocks’s faced many hardships in keeping their land, from foreclosures to warranty deeds, eventually going from 902 acres to 615 acres. But their ability to retain any acreage despite their troubles is a symbol of this family’s resistance and strength. Constance Stancil and Zakiya Zaid, both trustees for the Major Mattocks Real Estate Trust Farm, detailed the full history to guests and honored their ancestors Joseph Spicer and Catherine Jones Spicer and Major and Peggie Mattocks, alongside their nine children Alice, Alva, Dorothy, Katie, Mary, Pearlie, Judge, Thurston, and Esther.

The current Mattocks trustees and beneficiaries honor the stewardship legacy of those ancestors by responsibly managing the acreage passed down to them. The family partners with organizations like the National Wildlife Federation and The Longleaf Alliance to promote locally relevant, environmentally sustainable practices and education to the community.

Achieving Progress Through Connection

With groups like Black Family Land Trust, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, and Help for Landowners, the Longleaf and the Landowner Academy equipped eager-to-learn participants with professional resources. These participants also brainstormed lists of their own personal resources to lean on, too, from lawyers and mediators to surveyors and accountants. Forest management, restoration, and estate planning for multi-generational land stewardship often require a team approach for long-term success.

“You will meet so many people that it’s unbelievable,” Zaid said. “There’s so many people we’ve made partnerships with to get us where we are. It’s not just one organization, it’s the community out there that you lean into.”

To round out the event, attendees visited Croatan National Forest, 160,000 acres of pine forests, bogs, estuaries, bogs, and pocosins. Here, they learned about the strategies and success of older longleaf pine forests management firsthand, including uneven age management, the effects of prescribed burns, and red-cockaded woodpeckers. This visit offered a hopeful view into the future of what their properties could become with years of management.

“Let this be your beginning, not your end,” Zaid said. “This is just your first step.”

For 11 years, the National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools U.S. program and General Motors (GM) have partnered through the GM Green STEAM Partnership to support student-led environmental action. Through action grants, educator professional development, and mentorship from GM employees, students use the Eco-Schools framework to design and implement projects that strengthen both their communities and their STEAM skills.

During the 2025–26 school year, more than 20 schools participated, bringing environmental education to life through hands-on learning and innovation.

Flint Hill Elementary: Where Nature Becomes the Classroom

At Flint Hill Elementary School, sustainability is far more than a lesson—it’s a student-driven movement guided by the Eco-Code: “Leading our Community to Respect Beneficial Bugs, Learning to be Inspired by Nature, and Growing Habitats for Pollinators.”

Students began by identifying environmental priorities and transforming those ideas into actionable projects. Their work centered on expanding pollinator habitats, increasing recycling efforts, and creating outdoor learning environments where science could be experienced firsthand.

A thriving pollinator garden became a living laboratory where students observed butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators while learning about ecosystems, biodiversity, and plant life cycles. Students helped construct and maintain butterfly feeders, watering stations, and hummingbird feeders, applying scientific observation skills to monitor wildlife activity and habitat health.

Engineering and design thinking came into play as students and volunteers built an 8-by-4-foot raised garden bed. Students explored plant selection, soil composition, and garden design while cultivating pollinator-friendly flowers that supported local wildlife.

Perhaps one of the most exciting examples of STEAM learning was Flint Hill’s Tower Garden project. Through hydroponic growing systems, students discovered how to produce food both indoors and outdoors while exploring concepts such as water conservation, plant biology, and controlled growing environments.

By monitoring light exposure, water levels, and plant growth, students collected data and applied mathematical reasoning to track progress.

The impact extended beyond the classroom. Fresh lettuce and vegetables grown by students were served in the school cafeteria, creating a direct connection between science education and healthy food systems.

Students even designed informational signage to educate their peers about the produce they had grown, blending scientific communication with creativity and visual design.

Flint Hill students also demonstrated the power of civic engagement. Recognizing the role of community partnerships in environmental stewardship, they wrote a letter to Mayor Guccione thanking the town for its green infrastructure and support of pollinator habitats.

Through this project, students practiced communication, advocacy, and leadership skills while gaining an understanding of how local governments contribute to sustainability efforts.

The addition of butterfly benches and outdoor learning spaces further transformed the campus into an immersive environmental classroom where students can observe wildlife, conduct investigations, and connect with nature every day.

Hull Prairie Elementary: Innovation Rooted in Curiosity

At Hull Prairie Elementary (HPI), sustainability thrives through collaboration, creativity, and hands-on exploration.

The school’s Action Team—comprised of students, teachers, and custodial staff—meets monthly to oversee a wide range of environmental initiatives. Nearly 200 students actively participate in projects focused on composting, recycling, habitat restoration, gardening, and even rainbow trout cultivation.

From the beginning, students took ownership of the program. They developed and voted on their Eco-Code, designed educational posters, recorded morning announcements, and shared updates through the school’s learning platform, helping spread sustainability awareness to more than 1,000 students and families.

One of the year’s most impressive accomplishments was the expansion of HPI’s hydroponic growing program. What began as a few hydroponic buckets evolved into a sophisticated indoor growing system featuring 11 hydroponic buckets, a 40-plant hydroponic tower, and a four-tier greenhouse used for seed starting.

These projects provided students with authentic opportunities to explore plant science, engineering design, environmental systems, and data collection. By monitoring growth conditions and experimenting with different growing methods, students gained valuable experience in scientific inquiry and problem-solving.

Learning extended beyond school grounds through partnerships with GrowNextGen and Hertzel Farm. Virtual collaborations and field-based learning experiences introduced students to large-scale agriculture and composting operations, helping them understand how sustainable systems function at both local and commercial scales.

Students then applied what they learned by expanding their own composting efforts at school. Their success has sparked conversations among city officials and community leaders about bringing similar programs to additional schools throughout the Perrysburg Schools.

When challenges arose during a rainbow trout project, students embraced the scientific process by investigating fish deaths through observation, analysis, and dissection. Their willingness to ask questions and seek answers exemplified authentic scientific inquiry.

Their commitment to sustainability also benefited the broader community. Produce grown through hydroponic systems was shared with the school cafeteria and donated to a local food bank, reinforcing the idea that environmental action can have meaningful social impact.

Building Skills for a Sustainable Future

The projects at Flint Hill Elementary and Hull Prairie Elementary showcase the power of combining environmental education with hands-on STEAM learning. Students aren’t just studying science from textbooks—they’re designing systems, collecting data, solving problems, communicating ideas, and collaborating with community partners.

Whether constructing pollinator habitats, growing food through hydroponics, investigating ecological challenges, or advocating for sustainability in their communities, these students are developing the skills needed to thrive in an increasingly complex world.

Through the continued partnership between Eco-Schools U.S. and General Motors, students are learning that sustainability isn’t just about protecting the environment—it’s about developing the creativity, critical thinking, and leadership skills needed to build a better future.

“There’s not a lot of places in the lower 48 where you have natural and raw anymore, so people can [basically] compare the Keweenaw to Alaska,” says Mueller.

The Lodge, a member of the Great Lakes Business Network (GLBN), makes the most of this by providing an abundance of opportunities for guests, from mountain biking to birdwatching to cross-country skiing to moonlit snowshoe hikes. Lucky trailblazers may hear wolves and coyotes howl, find the scat of hiding bears, or see bald eagles.

But the woods aren’t the only feature drawing people from around the globe.

Lake Superior, one of the five Great Lakes, surrounds Keweenaw Peninsula. The pristine waters offer visitors the opportunity to explore dramatic coastlines and revel in activities like kayaking, boating, and shipwreck diving. Between that and nourishing the Great Northwoods, “it provides that natural diversity that the area really thrives off of,” as Mueller notes.

The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge is one of many businesses whose livelihoods are tied to the health and well-being of the Northwoods. 

Further south, Brian “Koz” Kozminski, owner of True North Trout and GLBN member, leads regular flyfishing tours on the Jordan and Manistee Rivers of Northern Michigan, with the occasional float down the Pidge, Black, and Sturgeon Rivers.

Michigan has more miles of rivers and lakes to fly fish than anywhere in the United States. This has led to many renowned magazines naming Michigan the best fly-fishing state, making businesses like True North Trout highly sought after.

However, these guided tours aren’t just about fishing. The hours on the water navigating fallen logs, spotting native fish species, and taking in the ambiance are just as powerful. Kozminski says they almost always see deer and birds, but sometimes the occasional river otter or beaver will be out during the tours as well. 

He adds, “I think when people take a day out of their 365 days to spend time on the water, they’re not connected to their phones, they’re disconnecting from all the internet and social media, they’re getting a chance to [decompress], and they see things that you don’t normally see. . . . There’s something about being connected to water that gives us the ability to defrag our brains.”

Unfortunately, the Great Northwoods, like many forests across the globe, are at risk.

“There’s so many aspects in the outdoor industry that are being threatened,” says Kozminski. “You know we’re trying to sell all these public lands, we’re opening up roadless areas to ORVs and these pristine places—public land, and access for us to hunt, fish, birdwatch, canoe, whatever it is we do—are very few and sacred, and we need to protect those places. We don’t need to flatten everything and make a parking lot and put a [superstore] there. Some places need to be left alone so we have places to escape and recharge our serenity.”

Then there’s climate change, with warmer, drier conditions drying out aquifers and raising water temperatures. For Kozminski, this means an increase in “Hoot-Owl” restrictions—fishing regulations meant to protect fish from extra stress during periods of high-water temperatures in streams and rivers. Hotter water means less oxygen in the water, which is fatal to fish. 

Fewer rivers to fish on means more fishers per river. This puts pressure on the limited number of rivers without restrictions, straining not only the environment and tarnishing the guest experience. After all, when you’re going fishing, you’re likely seeking that peace you get when on the water. And when guests aren’t happy, businesses struggle.

While warm temperatures threaten water-oriented companies like True North Trout, increased wildfires and shifts in weather patterns threaten forest-oriented businesses like Keweenaw Mountain Lodge.

“When people are coming up and looking at the dark skies, we want the clean air,” says Mueller. “[The smoke from the Canadian wildfires] takes away from the natural aspect of things, because that isn’t necessarily natural.”

Mueller notes that, historically, wildfires have been necessary to maintain balance in the ecosystem. But now, “Wildfires are burning a little bit differently. They’re burning warmer [and] hotter, and it’s a different burn than what you want.”

It’s up to us to protect the Great Northwoods from these destructive forces. Because if we don’t tend to these wild places, business owners like Mueller and Kozminski won’t have a pristine environment in which to immerse their guests.

The heart and soul of businesses like True North Trout and Keweenaw Mountain Lodge is the closeness to nature. If they can’t do that, what does that say for the Great Northwood’s larger outdoor recreation industry?

To get involved, visit our website!

We asked you to share your gardens with us, and you didn’t disappoint! Check out these stories and photos from wildlife gardeners across the country.

A Michigan Oasis

“Our yard has been a slow and deliberate change to create an ecofriendly environment for all of nature.  Even small spaces can have a big impact on helping our native species to survive!  The payback is not only the enjoyment of watching the wildlife but also feeling like we are helping to protect plants and animals in these challenging times. As I write this a pair of Mallard ducks just flew in.”

– Gaye

Californian Pollinator Paradise

“I knew I wanted my small patio and garden area filled with California native plants right when I purchased my home. I already knew they were water efficient and wanted to see local wildlife visit.

“I slowly began replacing some of the decorative and invasive plants with natives. I’ve added California Wild rose, poppy, fire sage, indigo sage, lavender, Mexican Elderberry, prickly pear cactus and native lilac. I’ve slowly landscaped for rain collection, using natural stones and other organic materials such as logs, minimizing runoff, flooding and erosion.

“The plants thrive, giving seasonal blooms, but need very little care. Although this has been a five-year ongoing process, I saw healthier soil and increased pollinator presence within the first year. Since then, I’ve been greeted by ever-more diversity in bugs and birds, such as the California bumble bee and the Western Bluebird! This is now my fourth year hosting monarchs, and they just keep coming back, just as the milkweed does.

“I am an important part of my ecosystem, wherever I live. I want my garden to remind me every day. It is also nice that I’m conserving water and saving money, of course.”

– Shara

A Pennsylvania Prairie

“My garden was the reason we purchased our home in 2021. We tell folks we bought a garden and a house came with it! The previous owner had created a garden with many native and medicinally useful plants, and we have built upon those themes since.

“We have practiced a ‘laissez-faire’ approach, allowing more native volunteer plants to grow. We have learned so much by doing this, that we are now expanding our native beds and adding permaculture practices.”

– Barbara

Arizona Desert Garden

“I bought an old home that was neglected in the downtown area of Phoenix. The house only takes up 10% of the property but the property was just a dirt lot when we moved in. Our goal is to bring structure, function, and biodiversity to the place while incorporating natives, with a few exceptions. Not having a lot of money, our garden has progressed from cuttings, seeds and unwanted seedlings. To date we have over 30 species of plants represented, have registered over 40 bird species and the lizard abundance has shot up. Most importantly, we have identified dozens of pollinators that visit in the spring blooms.

“As a wildlife biologist, I know the inherent value of biodiversity to our own health, both physical and mental. But more importantly we need to promote wildlife habitat in urban settings as larger wildlife habitats continue to decrease.”

– Adam

Get Your Garden Certified and Share Your Story!

You can make a difference in your own outdoor space starting today. Even small spaces like balconies and courtyards can have a huge impact.

Get your garden recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat here and share your story with us!

But more importantly than having fun in the sun, is that the ocean is home to more than 200,000 marine wildlife species (that have been identified), and possibly up to more than one million that have yet to be discovered. Our oceans also provide essential support to humans in many ways.

Get ready to be amazed by these wild ocean facts!

• The biggest animal in the world lives in the ocean—it’s the blue whale.
• Greenland sharks can live more than 250 years and dive up to 7,000 feet deep.
• The gender of sea turtle hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the nest—warmer sand produces more females, and cooler sand produces more males.
• Atlantic swordfish can swim up to 50 miles per hour.
• Salmon hatch in freshwater rivers, swim to the ocean to mature, and then go back to the same river in which they were born to spawn.
• Sea snakes are among the most venomous snakes in the world and they breath air.
• Deep-sea sponges produce anti-tumor agents that may be able to treat cancer in humans.

Take our quiz to test your knowledge about the ocean. If you want to boost your chances of getting a 100% on this quiz, first read our blog “Oceans are the Heart of the Planet“.

Oceans may be an ancient feature of our world, but they remain an exploration and research frontier to this day. Let’s look at what we may not know about oceans or what we may have forgotten and think about what we can do and support as individuals to advance the cause of a healthy and viable global ocean environment for both humans and wildlife.

Did you know?

• Oceans cover about 71 percent of the earth’s surface.
• There are five geographical oceans: Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, Indian and Southern (Antarctic).
• About half of the Earth’s oxygen comes from the oceans.
• Oceans are home to more than 200,000 marine wildlife species (and possibly up to more than 1 million that have yet to be discovered).
• Ocean invertebrates produce more antibiotic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory substances than any group of terrestrial organisms.
• The U.S. ocean economy alone produces approximately $282 billion in goods and services.

What the Ocean Provides

Fisheries and Recreation

The U.S. ocean economy produces about $282 billion in goods and services and employs close to three million people (through businesses such as marine transportation, fisheries, coastal tourism, etc.). A few of the top commercial fisheries are American lobster, Alaska snow crab, Atlantic salmon and Alaska pollock.

Latrunculid sponges are found in the deep sea off the coast of Alaska. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), these sponges “are recognized as the major reservoirs of diverse types of pyrroloiminoquinone-type alkaloids, with a myriad of biological activities, in particular, cytotoxicity, fueling their exploration for anticancer drug discovery.” (cytotoxicity is the capacity of a substance or agent to cause damage or death to living cells, and in this case, cancer cells).

Oxygen

About half of the planet’s oxygen comes from the ocean. And most of this production is from plankton; one particular species called Prochlorococcus—it’s the smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth. It’s important to note that marine life consumes a significant portion of the oxygen that comes from the ocean—it’s essentially a closed ecosystem.

Medicine

According to NOAA, “many medicinal products come from the ocean, including ingredients that help fight cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease.” Specifically, ocean invertebrates produce more antibiotic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory substances than any group of terrestrial organisms! To address the threat of depleting natural resources, scientists often create synthetic copies of essential marine compounds in labs.

Carbon Sequestration

The ocean acts as a “carbon sink” and absorbs about 31 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions released into the atmosphere, according to a NOAA study. Carbon sequestration is critical for mitigating climate change by capturing and storing atmospheric CO2, however the continued increase in CO2 in the ocean causes ocean acidification, which is a threat to marine life.

Threats to Our Oceans

The ocean provides essential services to help humans thrive, however, many of these “ecosystem services” are causing long-lasting, harmful impacts to marine ecosystems.

Habitat Loss

Coastal Development

Uncontrolled, poorly cited or improperly located or improperly managed coastal development such as sea walls, marinas, hotels, and other structures can cause harm to a variety of wildlife that depend on coastal habitats.

Impacted wildlife

• Sea turtle nesting beaches are impacted; all six species of sea turtles are protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
• Shorebirds such as the piping plover also suffer habitat loss; the piping plover is protected under the ESA in many regions of the U.S.

Deep-Sea Mining

The seabed has some very valuable minerals including manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper, that are used in everything from “defense systems and batteries to smartphones and medical devices.” Deep-sea mining is the extraction of these minerals and may be harmful to the ocean environment. Mining operations could destroy the unique deep ocean habitat, cause an influx of sediment that smothers marine wildlife, releases toxic chemicals, generates noise and light pollution, and more.

The deep-sea environment is home to thousands of wildlife species. In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) alone, a prime candidate for deep-sea mining, “researchers have recently discovered over 5,000 species that were entirely new to science”. The CCZ is a giant abyssal (deep) plain, located in the North Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii to the north and Mexico to the south. Currently, there are small-scale deep-sea mining operations; however, governments and mining companies around the world are pushing these operations to expand as the demand for these minerals increases.

“To date, 185 new species have been identified from the CCZ. Only six of these new species have been observed elsewhere.”

– Current Biology article

Impacted Wildlife

• Sperm whales are listed as endangered under the ESA and protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Sperm whales can be found in areas identified for deep-sea mining, including in the CCZ and Alaskan waters.
• Pygmy sharks, one of the smallest shark species, are listed as least concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List with their populations being stable, however their deep-sea habitat could be threatened by deep-sea mining.
• Gummy squirrels, also known as sea cucumbers, live at depths of more than 16,000 feet, and could face threats due to deep-sea mining; this species was discovered in 2018.

Pollution

Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers from agricultural and residential runoff can cause toxic algal blooms (rapid increase in algal blooms releases neurotoxins and depletes oxygen levels in the water making it difficult or impossible for marine wildlife to breathe). Here are a few examples of impacted wildlife:

• In 2013, 277 manatee deaths in Florida were attributed to or suspected to be caused by a red tide (a type of toxic algal bloom); manatees are listed as threatened under the ESA.
• In 2015, off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington, the Dungeness crab fishery lost 97.5 million due to a toxic algal bloom; it shut down the crab and razor clam fisheries that year.

Plastic pollution is a critical threat to the world’s wildlife and to human health. Scientists believe about 8 million metric tons of plastic entered the ocean in 2010, and that number has probably increased since then. Here are a few examples of impacted wildlife:

• An estimated 56 percent of whale, dolphin and porpoise species have consumed plastic, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Plastic often looks like food, or is ingested accidentally with water and zooplankton, like krill, as baleen whales feed.
• According to the Center for Biological Diversity, fish in the North Pacific take in 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic, including microplastics, annually, which can result in intestinal injury and ultimately death. Sharks and other fish are vulnerable to microplastics since they bring in water through their gills. 

Overfishing

Some fisheries are being depleted due to overfishing; populations simply can’t keep up with the increased demand for seafood and advanced fishing technologies, such as fish finders. According to NOAA, in a 2023 Report to Congress on the Status of U.S. Fisheries, approximately 6-9 percent of U.S. fish stocks are experiencing overfishing, with key impacted species including summer flounder, lane snapper, and various salmon and rockfish stocks.

Ocean Acidification

Ocean acidification is caused by an excess of CO2 absorbed into the ocean from the atmosphere. This lowers the pH level, increasing the acidity, and disrupting marine ecosystems. Acidification primarily affects calcifying organisms including corals, clams, sea urchins, etc. The acidification makes it more difficult for these animals to build and maintain their calcium carbonate shells and skeletons. “NOAA Fisheries is proposing to list five species of giant clams as endangered and one species of giant clam as threatened under the ESA because they are in danger of extinction now or in the foreseeable future.”

Climate Change

Warming ocean temperatures are causing widespread coral bleaching, which destroys habitats for many different species of marine life, like the elkhorn and staghorn corals. Historically, these corals were in abundance in the Florida Keys but are now considered “functionally extinct. Warming temperatures also impact migration of many fisheries, pushing animals to cooler waters.

According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, for close to forty years the American lobster fishery saw a “fivefold” increase in the Gulf of Maine due to warming temperatures, however, since 2016 this fishery has slowed down as continued increase in ocean temperatures is causing lobsters to move further north (the warmer water can cause the lobster to be more vulnerable to shell-borne illness).

Conservation Efforts

National Wildlife Federation (NWF) works on many marine conservation issues including sustainable fisheries management, habitat and biodiversity protections, establishment of marine protected areas, and more. NWF sets their conservation policy priorities in partnership with our state affiliate organization partners; a few examples of recent policy resolutions include supporting a cleaner fuel requirement for ocean-going vessels, opposing potentially damaging deep seabed mining practices to ensure protection of the marine and terrestrial environments and species as DSM exploration advances, and supporting shark conservation and population recovery.

NWF is an original member of the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition (HCRC), supporting and helping to advance the coalition’s efforts to protect and restore horseshoe crab populations along the Atlantic Coast. The Coalition is specifically working to end harvesting of horseshoe crabs for bait and the bleeding of crabs for biomedical toxicity testing.

To this end the coalition is working with the pharmaceutical industry to accelerate the adoption of synthetic lysate alternatives for use in toxicity testing of medicines, vaccines, and medical devices (lysate is a substance found in the blood of the horseshoe crab). NWF Affiliates on the coalition include Delaware Nature Society, National Aquarium, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, and HCRC co-founder New Jersey Audubon Society, who works alongside NWF’s director of conservation partnerships Marcus Sibley who serves as a core team member. Learn more about the challenges the horseshoe crab is facing, Decline of an Ancient Mariner.

Many of NWF’s state affiliate partners provide education and awareness programs on marine wildlife, implement on-the-ground conservation and restoration efforts, and advocate for state and federal policy that protects our oceans. 

Association of Northwest Steelheaders (Oregon)

The Association of Northwest Steelheaders, in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fish Eggs to Fry program, helps bring salmon or trout eggs into Oregon classrooms. The students then monitor the eggs through their life cycle from egg to fry. The Association’s members and other volunteers assist with setting up aquarium equipment, delivering eggs to classrooms, and introducing students to the importance of fish conservation. The Association has provided more than 25,000 hours to the program, provided at least 350 out of the 750 aquariums in classrooms across the state, and provided support to teachers through curricular resources, classroom presentations, technical support, and assistance with fry release day events in partnership with NWF’s Eco-Schools U.S.

Fun fact! Many species of salmon hatch in freshwater rivers, migrate to the ocean where they mature, and then return to their natal freshwater rivers to spawn.

“Throughout this process, the children develop a personal connection with the fish, sparking a lifelong investment in wildlife conservation. The children also learn about the scientific process of recording scientific data in a classroom journal, while ensuring the water is the right temperature, has enough air and is clean enough for fry to survive. This provides an opportunity to learn about their local streams and the importance of healthy waterways to salmon survival.”

– Tom VanderPlaat, volunteer coordinator

Conservation Council for Hawai’i

The Conservation Council for Hawai’i is well known for its advocacy work to save endemic species and eco-systems from mauka (upland) to makai (toward the sea) for the Hawaiian Islands, including the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and the Pacific Remote Islands. Their work includes saving native Hawaiian seabirds from light pollution, protecting humpback whales from disruptive underwater sonar waves, and lowering the marine by-catch amounts from industrial fishing. They’ve worked with NWF to pass resolutions to influence our policy priorities including:

• Recognizing the cultural and ecological importance of sharks and the necessity of protecting them
• Advocating for the creation, expansion, and protection of marine sanctuaries/marine protected areas
• Calling for a moratorium on deep sea mining along with further research and strict guidelines on its advancement 

The Council is also committed to education and awareness; their signature event, Manu o Kū Festival, reaches hundreds of families and keiki (kids) every spring in the Honolulu area and engages participants in presentations and activities to learn about native wildlife. They also create an annual educational poster in collaboration with local artists that highlight native wildlife. The posters are then sent to all K-12 schools across the islands. 

National Aquarium (Maryland)

The National Aquarium’s mission is to connect people with nature to inspire compassion and care for the ocean planet. The private nonprofit organization’s goals are to combat climate change, stop plastic pollution and save wildlife and habitats through a holistic approach that includes education, engagement, habitat restoration, animal rescue work, sustainable business practices and policy advocacy.

More than 1.2 million people visit each year to experience immersive exhibits that are home to a wide variety of marine animals including sharks, sea turtles, dolphins, jellies, anemones, puffins, tropical reef fish, and more. The Aquarium reaches even more people through science-based education programs and hands-on field conservation work with partners in Baltimore and throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

National Aquarium staff, volunteers and partners have restored thousands of acres throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed—removing debris and planting native trees, gardens and wetland grasses in Baltimore City and beyond to provide habitat for wildlife and promote coastal resiliency. The Aquarium rescues and rehabilitates endangered and protected marine species, successfully returning hundreds of seals and sea turtles to the ocean, work that has informed its efforts to improve federal investment in marine animal stranding networks.

The Aquarium also works with NWF and other partners and coalitions to share diverse expertise with decision makers, inform the public process, and advocate for policies that safeguard wildlife, restore habitats, build resiliency to climate change impacts, reduce carbon and plastic pollution, and advance environmental justice.

How can you help protect our oceans?

There isn’t an easy answer to this question. There are complex, multi-step solutions to address these many threats to the ocean environment, solutions that require new laws and policies, enforcement of existing laws, education and awareness, collaboration across multiple stakeholders (e.g., governments, communities, companies, etc.), regular surveys of fisheries and other marine populations, etc.

Support Key Legislation

• Forage Fish Conservation Act
• Endangered Species Act
• Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) (read NWF blog, Celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the MSA)
• Recovering America’s Wildlife Act
• Marine Mammal Protection Act

NWF’s Action Fund Advocacy Toolkit provides guidance on the many ways to share your message of support with friends, family, public officials, media outlets, and more.

Take Action at Home and in the Community

• Celebrate World Ocean Day on June 8^th. Help educate your family and friends about the ocean and its amazing wildlife. 
• Leave no trace. When you are in the outdoors (on the beach, swimming in the ocean, along the river), leave no trace that you were there. This means do not leave any litter on the ground, do not touch or pick up wildlife (e.g., crabs, starfish, etc.), if you are building a sandcastle or stacking shells on the beach put everything back the way you found it before you leave, etc.
• Adopt a storm drain. Adopting a storm drain is a simple and fun way you can remind others to keep trash and chemicals that harm wildlife out of our local waterways and oceans.
• Host a clean-up. Host a clean-up in your community, at a local school, park, or beach to keep trash, including plastics, out of our streams, rivers, and oceans. 
• Restore seagrass beds. Volunteer with a local organization to protect and restore the sea grass beds.
• Find out what your plastic eco-score is and adopt a new habit to reduce plastic waste and help keep plastic out of the streams, rivers, and oceans.
• Purchase coral reef-safe sunscreen; these sunscreens are mineral-based.
• When boating, follow safe boating and navigation guidelines, including speed limits, and look out for sea turtles, manatees, and other wildlife.

Take our quiz to test your knowledge about the ocean.

Empower the Next Generation of Ocean Stewards

Kids’ Corner with Ranger Rick®

• Watch: How do underwater animals defend themselves?
• Watch: Why do fish swim in schools?
• Watch: Motion of the Ocean
• Dolphins Kahoot!
• Sea Otters Kahoot!
• Sea Turtles Kahoot!
• Shrimp Kahoot!

Get outside for a Green Hour®

• Celebrate Oceans
• Make Beach Art
• Hunt for Seashells

More resources:

• Marine mammals (NWF wildlife guide)
• Cold and warm water fish (NWF wildlife guide)
• Sea turtles (NWF wildlife guide)
• Restoring the gulf coast
• Wildlife impacts from plastic pollution

But why are prices rising? The short answer is supply and demand.

Economics 101: A Quick Refresher

Like concert tickets, prices are high when there is increased demand and limited supply. 

Energy prices are increasing because there is rising demand for electricity, in large part, from AI data centers. Plus, our outdated and aging energy grid was not built to handle this surging demand, creating bottlenecks that drive up electricity costs and delay new, low-cost clean energy sources from coming online. Recent analysis estimates grid load growth will increase by 25 percent by 2030 and more than 75 percent by 2050. 

Responsible clean energy can help fill this gap and bring prices down. Over the past decade, the cost of wind and solar have dropped, making them more affordable than other sources of energy.

However, recent actions from the Trump administration are preventing Americans from accessing affordable, reliable energy. Some of those actions include halting clean energy projects, rolling back incentives that make household and small business clean energy and efficiency upgrades more affordable, and delaying funding for families that need help paying for heating and cooling.

At a time when prices are rising, we need to add more electricity to the grid, not less. And we already have the solutions to do so in a way that’s both friendly to our wallets and our environment.

The Energy Bills Relief Act

A proposal responding to rising electricity costs and renewable energy shortages is the Energy Bills Relief Act (EBRA). EBRA was introduced by Representatives Sean Casten (D-IL-06) and Mike Levin (D-CA-49) earlier this year and aims to deploy responsible clean energy, lower energy bills for households, and reduce barriers for connecting cheaper energy to the grid.

The legislation spurs clean energy deployment by restoring tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) adopted in the previous Congress and Administration—which were weakened or prematurely ended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

These tax credits make it cheaper to generate electricity and manufacture the technologies in America, while prioritizing job growth and investment in certain communities affected the most by the transition away from fossil fuels. EBRA also reinstates grants given to low-income and disadvantaged communities for affordable, clean energy solutions.

EBRA would also lower energy bills for households by supporting and expanding programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which increases access to heating and cooling assistance, and the Rural Energy Savings Program that helps consumers make their home or business more energy efficient.

Finally, EBRA tackles some of the challenges clean energy technologies face in connecting to the electric grid, including making it easier to use rooftop and community solar, increasing staffing at state public utility commissions (i.e., entities that regulate utility rates and services), and more fairly distributing costs from grid updates.

While EBRA offers needed policy solutions to help American households and a bold vision for furthering the clean energy transition, there are a few areas of improvement from a conservation perspective. Namely, to alleviate development pressure in important natural areas called “greenfields,” the bill could encourage deployment of responsible clean energy in existing energy corridors and on degraded lands, including brownfields, former mine lands, and contaminated agricultural areas.

It is also important that any energy policy proposal has strong safeguards for wildlife, public lands, and the communities that rely on them, such as using the mitigation hierarchy in siting and permitting, incorporating protections for sensitive wildlife habitats, and aligning with State Wildlife Action Plans.

EBRA is a step in the right direction and will improve our energy system by making it easier for affordable, healthier clean energy to be connected to the grid quickly.The National Wildlife Federation urges Congress to pass this legislation and to further strengthen it with robust protection and conservation measures for our wildlife and habitats.

Support for Clean Energy

We already have the solutions to lower energy bills while cleaning up pollution associated with fossil-fuel use. Clean energy is the cheapest form of energy and provides reliable, affordable energy to everyone. What we need is political will that prioritizes the health and wellbeing of people and wildlife.