Join Dr. Karen Oberhauser of Monarch Joint Venture and Fresh Energy’s Rob Davis for a webinar to discuss the science and safety of photovoltaic solar and the growing trend of planting pollinator habitat under and around ground-mounted solar panels.

In 2016 alone, nearly 2,500 acres of solar sites in Minnesota and Wisconsin were seeded with millions of native flowers and grasses including black-eyed susans, side-oats grama, purple prairie clover, butterfly milkweed, and calico aster.

Dr. Karen Oberhauser, one of the world’s foremost experts on monarchs, will discuss the risk of monarch extinction within our lifetimes and the inter-agency and public/private partnerships implementing habitat conservation and restoration measures.

Rob Davis will discuss Fresh Energy’s pioneering work in collaboration with the University of Minnesota Bee Lab, Monarch Joint Venture, the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, and others to establish standards as to what constitutes “pollinator friendly solar.” Rob will delve into the history of how pollinator-friendly solar was imported from the United Kingdom, where it is a common practice. Rob will outline how Fresh Energy, Audubon Minnesota, and the Minnesota Corn Growers Association built a bipartisan coalition of support for a statewide standard for vegetation on solar sites.

We will leave 20 minutes for Q & A – feel free to send questions ahead of time to info@fresh-energy.org or message them to presenters during the webinar.

Click here to register