Nearly 23 percent of Collingwood, Ontario, is covered by lawn. In Montreal, 96.5 square kilometres of turf add up to be 43 times bigger than the city’s sprawling Mount Royal Park. Nearby Laval, Quebec, has an additional 35.5 square kilometres. And Toronto has 79.6 square kilometres of lawns, equalling an area 50 times bigger than High Park, one of the city’s largest green spaces.

These grassy lawns are great for cartwheels and picnics, but manicured turf offers no place for butterflies, bees and other pollinators to eat, nest, reproduce and overwinter.

For years now, the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) has been working to claim back this vital green space with its Butterflyway Project, an initiative that empowers everyday citizens to expand habitat for butterflies and other pollinators in neighbourhoods across Canada.

Volunteer Butterflyway Rangers work within their community to create a Butterflyway. By planting gardens (sometimes even in canoes), sharing seeds and resources, educating residents and spreading the word, little actions by hundreds of volunteers have a big impact for our tiny friends. Between the program’s inception in 2017 and 2024, these rewilders planted more than 100,000 native wildflowers and grasses and more than 3,000 trees and shrubs for a total of 7,400 habitat gardens – and they’re just getting started.