Community Conservation

Columbia has amazing parks, streams, and forests to explore throughout the city that not only provide recreational opportunities but access to clean air and water, shade, and mental health benefits as well. Often, we think of natural resources or nature as only existing in parks or outside of city limits but this is not true. Your backyard, apartment complex, office building, school, and community centers can support opportunities to a varying degree. It’s all about finding the balance between people and wildlife. 

Community conservation is all about bringing people closer to nature as well as enhancing Columbia’s natural environment for people and native wildlife through educational programming, habitat restoration, outreach, and strategic planning.

Native Landscaping

Our community is healthier and happier when nature is nearby. Learn about native plants and how to create a manageable, sustainable landscape that works for wildlife and you. Visit the  opens in a new windowNative Landscaping Learning Series website for information and resources to start your native landscape today! 

Mayors' Monarch Pledge

Mayors’ Monarch Pledge

The National Wildlife Federation launched the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge to engage cities, municipalities, and other communities in monarch butterfly conservation. In November 2016, the City of Columbia signed the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge committing Columbia to restoring native habitats by replanting native flora and managing invasive species, and to increasing awareness about monarch butterfly conservation through school programs. Since signing the pledge the City has installed 15 acres of native prairie habitat on park lands and will be adding 27 acres of native pollinator habitat along roadsides. The Parks and Recreation Department started our Adopt-a-Trail program that focuses on invasive species removal along our trails. We continue to partner with elementary schools to install pollinator gardens on school grounds.

The bright and fragrant wildflowers attract a number of monarch butterflies that lay their eggs on milkweed leaves.

Monarch Butterfly Garden @ City Hall, 701 E. Broadway

The Monarch Butterfly Garden at City Hall contains prairie and glade adapted plants including Missouri primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa), common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), and other native wildflowers and grasses.  Visit grownative.org to find more information about native Missouri plants. 

Roadside Pollinator Program

Beginning in Spring 2019 the City of Columbia will be transitioning mowed turf grass along select roadsides into managed, native wildflower areas for pollinators. In addition to providing habitat to pollinators, the City’s Streets Division will also be saving money and reducing our municipal carbon emissions by not mowing the approximately eighty-eight (88) acres of roadside public right-of-way.  Find more information on this program

CoMo Wild Yards Program

CoMo Wild Yards Program

The CoMo Wild Yards program is designed to help homeowners, businesses, and other landholders convert their non-native landscaping to a native habitat that supports our local ecosystem, helps manage stormwater runoff, and creates beautiful natural spaces.

 A very happy CoMo Wild Yard participant that has reached their conservation goals.

If you request a CoMo Wild Yards consultation you will be contacted by the Community Conservationist to schedule an appointment. On the day of your consultation, the Community Conservationist and volunteer Habitat Advisers will visit your property for 1 to 2 hours. We will walk with you through each section of your yard to discuss what actions are required to meet your conservation goals and make your property a native habitat. Upon completion of your consultation, the Community Conservationist will send a customized CoMo Wild Yards management plan that contains our recommendations for you to reach your conservation goals (including plant lists and a resource guide) as well as a roadmap for becoming a certified CoMo Wild Yards habitat. If you reach your goals and become a certified habitat you have the option to place a CoMo Wild Yards sign in your native landscape (see image for signage).  Learn more about the program or request a consultation.

Downtown CoMo Tree Trail

Trees create shade on a summer day, block wind in winter, reduce stress, help us breathe easier, clean air and water. There’s no argument, trees work for people and wildlife. Downtown street trees provide these same services but have a greater impact due to the harsh built environment where they exist. These trees are sometimes undervalued due to their small size; however, small trees in a downtown area are inherently more valuable because of the number of people that interact with them daily and maintenance requirements. Explore the value of Columbia’s downtown street trees by following the  opens in a new windowDowntown CoMo Tree Trail.   

Youth programs

Grant Elementary Pollinator Garden

 At Grant Elementary School, city staff work with students and teachers to establish two native pollinator gardens. The 1st, 2nd, and 5th-grade classes studied native plants and designed their gardens to support all various species of pollinators, including the monarch butterfly. The teachers worked with City staff to apply for grant funding to purchase soil, mulch, and native plants for the gardens.

Youth Monarch Conservation Program

The Youth Monarch Conservation Program is designed to introduce youth, who are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, to nature. Youth learn about the monarch butterfly life cycle and habitat restoration. After several classroom sessions, youth then apply what they have learned in the classroom to the field by participating in actual habitat restoration projects across the City of Columbia. 

Habitat restoration

Missouri has retained 0.1% of its natural prairie. This means that 99.9% of our prairie has disappeared. Human activities are the greatest factor in habitat loss. As we convert natural lands into farmland and urban centers we lose the native plants that support the  native insects that form the building blocks of the food chain. The City of Columbia has joined other local organizations in restoring native habitats including our lost prairies for the monarch butterfly and other important species.

As a Missourians for Monarchs* collaborative member, the City of Columbia is working with many other organizations, cities, and individuals to create and maintain 19,000 acres of monarch habitat across Missouri. The following habitat projects contribute to the Collaborative’s goal of installing 19,000 acres of habitat.

*Visit moformonarchs.org to learn more about the Missourians for Monarchs collaborative.

Yellow Flowers

Black-Eyed-Susan/ Rudbeckia Hirta

3M Monarch Butterfly Habitat Restoration Project

In 2016, the 3M Corporation awarded the City of Columbia, a $25,000 grant to restore 15 acres of native prairie habitat to support the monarch butterfly. In partnership with the Missouri Department of Conservation, the City selected and prepared three different sites including a 5.5 acre area along the MKT trail, a 1 acre site at Twin Lakes Park, and an 8 acre area at Gans Creek Recreation Area.

Beginning in 2017, the City and its partners worked together to prepare the selected sites by removing existing vegetation. Following site preparation, the City worked with Grant Elementary 2nd and 5th graders to conduct a dormant wildflower seeding in January, 2018. Currently, these sites are in their second year of growth and native wildflowers are beginning to emerge.

At completion, these monarch habitat sites will be used as demonstration sites for educational and outreach activities as well as recreational opportunities for the public.

Common Grounds

The City’s Community Conservation program works to protect and restore Columbia’s native habitats through public education, conservation assistance programs, and by implementing best management practices on public lands.

The City of Columbia supports local food production with the COMO Common Ground Community Garden Program. Columbia is committed to increasing food security and access to fresh, healthy, and local food sources throughout the community.

The City of Columbia Stormwater Program helps educate local residents about what stormwater is, how it becomes polluted, and how individuals can help protect our local streams, creeks and recreational waterways.