A federally endangered gyne, or "future queen", rusty patched bumble bee. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

As summer begins, fields, forests, prairies, riverwalks and gardens across Wisconsin come alive with an array of life. Preserving biodiversity in the Badger State is a multi-faceted effort, merging legislative efforts with organized social gatherings to find creative solutions. 

Late last week, a package of bills was introduced to help shore up protections for pollinators. The package of seven bills has a range of policy objectives including:

• Requiring state agencies and government entities to give preference to use native prairie and forage plants to benefit pollinators. 
• Designating June 2025 as Pollinator Awareness Month in Wisconsin. 
• Allowing a political subdivision to regulate pesticides for the purpose of protecting pollinators and pollinator habitats. 
• Prohibiting people who sell plants from advertising or labeling the plants as good for pollinators if they are treated with certain insecticides.
• Establishing a “Protect Pollinators” license plate program, similar to other conservation-focused license plate programs. 
• Prohibiting the DNR from using any insecticide from the neonicotinoid class near any pollinator habitat located on DNR-maintained land. 
• Designating Rusty Patched Bumble Bee as the state native insect and requiring the Wisconsin Blue Book to include information concerning that designation. 

The bills were announced in Menasha by Reps  Lee Snodgrass (D- Appleton) and Vincent Miresse (D- Stevens Point). Luke Schiller, executive director of the Heckrodt Wetland Reserve and Sara Walling, Clean Wisconsin’s water program director, attended the announcement. 

Pollinators are important not only to ecosystems, but also to the global economy. According to an article in Forbes, pollinators contribute between $235 billion and $577 billion in global food production. Pollinators come in all shapes and sizes and include bees, hummingbirds, butterflies and certain species of bats. Decades of overusing pesticides and habitat destruction have contributed to staggering declines in pollinator populations across the globe, and throughout ecosystems. 

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is seeking volunteers to monitor one of those pollinators, the Karner blue butterfly. Volunteers have been crucial  in tracking the endangered butterfly since 2018. Although the butterflies are found from Minnesota to Maine to Canada, Wisconsin has the largest remaining population. Karner Blue Butterflies are threatened by habitat loss fragmenting their range into isolated pockets and climate change. Open barrens, savannas and prairies are still abundant in Wisconsin, and are ideal habitats for the butterfly. 

“Volunteers will be able to identify Karner blue butterflies and help us collect data to look at how this species moves around the landscape over time,” Chelsea Weinzinger the DNR’s Karner blue butterfly recovery coordinator said in a statement. “Collecting this information improves our data and gives us a better statewide picture of how this species is faring.” The Karner is related to the northern blue butterfly, which some DNR researchers say they haven’t seen since 2010 in Wisconsin. 

Field trip opportunities are also available through the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. The field trips occur across the state and range from paddling wetland habitats to joining researchers in Beaver Creek Reserve to learn about the state’s smallest falcon species. Several field trips are also occurring in the Milwaukee-area, offering people the chance to canoe under tree canopies on the Milwaukee River, traverse urban habitats, explore hardwood forests and wetlands in the Mequon Nature Preserve   and much more.

Cuts to the federal volunteer program AmeriCorps are already affecting projects in Wisconsin, with one conservation agency losing more than half of its staffers this year.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration effectively gutted the 30-year-old federal agency AmeriCorps after placing 85% of its staff on administrative leave and terminating nearly $400 million in federal contracts for AmeriCorps programs. 

The Trump administration said cuts were made because of $40 million of improper payments in 2024.

AmeriCorps dispatched about 200,000 Americans to projects nationwide last year, according to a release from the volunteer agency.

Eric Robertson is director of Wisconsin Conservation Corps, a nonprofit agency that focuses on environmental restoration projects across Wisconsin and the upper Midwest. The organization partners with state parks around Wisconsin and coordinates volunteers for projects ranging from constructing trails to environmental restoration efforts with the National Park Service. 

Robertson told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that support from AmeriCorps helps make up nearly 25% of his agency’s funding.

“We currently have a model that needs to be adjusted very quickly (so) that we can reduce our overhead costs, reduce our direct expenses while trying to maintain revenue and then rely on community support to get us through this,” Robertson said.

Wisconsin is among nearly two dozen states that are suing the Trump administration over the cuts to the federal volunteer agency.

Cuts to AmeriCorps funding are affecting a variety of programs throughout Wisconsin. Serve Wisconsin Executive Director Jeanne Duffy told WPR that her organization receives about $14 million of federal funding annually. AmeriCorps volunteers contribute to programs in Wisconsin ranging from education and youth programs to public health and disaster response programs. 

Duffy said AmeriCorps members in the Wisconsin Conservation Corps and the Green Bay Conservation Corps improved more than 570 acres of public land and around 170 miles of trails and rivers during the 2023-24 program year.

“The absence of AmeriCorps would hinder progress in preserving and improving Wisconsin’s natural resources for public enjoyment and conservation,” Duffy said.

Robertson said his organization is focused on pivoting operations and funding sources to meet the needs of current projects.

“Some of these projects have been in development for over a year, and some of these members who would have been joining us have committed to us six to nine months ago,” Robertson said. “We’re still trying to make sure that we can adjust these models, so that we can come out and say that the Wisconsin Conservation Corps can operate without these funds.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

Cuts to federal volunteer program AmeriCorps leave Wisconsin programs scrambling is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

For months, Republican lawmakers on the powerful Joint Finance Committee have cast doubt on the reauthorization of Wisconsin’s land stewardship program following a July state Supreme Court ruling that prohibited the legislative committee from blocking projects after the funds have been budgeted. 

A 2023 Wisconsin Watch investigation found that the GOP-controlled committee had increasingly used a secretive “pocket veto” power since Democratic Gov. Tony Evers was elected to block conservation projects under the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. Lawmakers refused to take action on some projects, preventing them from moving forward.

The program has been funded at roughly $33 million annually since 2015 and is currently funded through 2026. But only $20.1 million of those funds were spent in fiscal year 2023-24, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

That $33 million allotment hardly stacks up to the amount the program used to be funded. In 2007, the program was reauthorized for another decade and allocated $86 million annually for land purchases, though that was reduced to $60 million a year in the 2011 budget, then $50 million in the 2013 budget before bottoming out at $33 million in the 2015 budget.

Since the 6-1 ruling — with two conservative justices joining the liberal majority — GOP lawmakers have seemed poised to let a popular, bipartisan program die because they don’t have final say over spending on the projects. 

“It’s unfortunate that Gov. Evers’ lawsuit (which resulted in the Supreme Court ruling) removed all accountability of the stewardship program, which helped ensure local voices were heard and that taxpayer resources were spent wisely,” Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, co-chair of the JFC, said in a statement. “The entire program is now in jeopardy.”

In an interview with the Cap Times, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said the odds that Republicans would renew the program were less than 50%. 

But JFC vice chair Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, told Wisconsin Watch that he is hopeful the program can continue and that nobody in his caucus wants the program to end. 

“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure the program is sustainable for the future,” Kurtz said in an interview.

Since 1989, when the program began, the state has spent more than $23 million in stewardship funds in Kurtz’s 41st Assembly District. The program has funded nearly 330 projects in the district ranging from trail developments and campground upgrades to habitat protection and boat launch construction. 

In his executive budget proposal last month, Evers proposed a 10-year renewal of the program with a $1 billion price tag. Kurtz said the budget committee isn’t going to adopt that proposal, but he’s committed to seeing the program reauthorized for “the next couple of years.” He said every lawmaker has a Knowles-Nelson project “in their backyard” that they might not even know about.

“It is a large price tag,” Kurtz said. “But we do need to make the investments. The investments are valuable for the long-term conservation of Wisconsin.” 

Following a series of listening sessions held in his district, state Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, said attendees spoke in support of the program. 

“I am supportive of the program and hope to see it continue, but many of my colleagues in the legislature have reservations,” Marklein, co-chair of the JFC, said in a statement. 

Kurtz said it’s unfortunate the program has become a partisan fight in the Capitol and that some lawmakers are “negative” toward the program, adding that Knowles-Nelson is “more than just one project.” 

Conservation advocacy groups like Gathering Waters have pushed back against the JFC’s threats to kill the program, which provides millions of dollars in grants to local governments and nonprofits.

“I think legislative leaders were certainly unhappy about losing that Supreme Court case in such an unambiguous way,” Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives for Gathering Waters, told Wisconsin Watch. “There is constantly a temptation for lawmakers to get pulled into partisan battles where politics becomes more about winning than it does about good policy.”

When asked if he would veto a state budget that eliminates funding for Knowles-Nelson, Evers said he would use his partial veto power to reject “that part of it.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Republican lawmakers diverge on future of conservation stewardship program is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.