About

About

Formed in 1993, the North American Butterfly Association (NABA), a not-for-profit membership organization, is the major North American organization promoting conservation of butterflies and their habitat. NABA focuses its efforts on educating the public about the importance of butterflies and their habitats and on conserving butterflies, both to the benefit of humans and our environment.

Mission

The mission of NABA is to increase public enjoyment and conservation of butterflies: making butterflies important to a growing number of people and creating a constituency that works to conserve butterflies and their habitats. NABA achieves its goals through promoting conservation of butterflies and their habitat, education, and providing opportunities for the public to experience butterflies outdoors. Membership in NABA supports these goals.

Butterfly Garden and Habitat Program

Started in the 1990’s, NABA’s Butterfly Garden and Habitat program focuses on educating people on the creation and preservation of butterfly habitat. The program’s goal is to  inspire as many people as possible to plant or maintain habitat in their local areas.

In recent years, the focus of the program has highlighted the need to use regionally native plants when developing habitat for butterflies. NABA’s regional butterfly garden guides, one of the primary features of the program, are in the process of being updated to include regionally native plants as their primary focus.

NABA’s Butterfly Garden Certification Program encourages butterfly gardeners to demonstrate their committment to creating butterfly habitat. By the end of 2013, just over 1,000 gardens had been certified in Canada and the United States. These gardens create an example to others, helping to instill the idea on a local level that every garden helps to create more habitat for butterflies as well as other pollinators.