To the Editor:

Ninety percent of all flowering plants in our gardens and farms are dependent on pollinators such as honeybees and butterflies. Unfortunately, recent years have seen a 60 percent global decline of our bumblebees and 80 percent of migratory monarch butterflies. Thousands of gardens have been planted around the country to support our bee and butterfly populations in observance of this dangerous phenomenon. Without bees and other pollinating insects, entire ecosystems are imperiled.

The Princeton Battlefield Monument at Monument Hall is part of the global pollinator project, a nationwide initiative to combat the enigmatic disappearance of critical insects from our fields and gardens. At the Monument, volunteers from Friends of Princeton Open Space, the Contemporary Garden Club of Princeton, Isles, Inc., Corner House, Princeton Public Works and Morven Museum and Gardens have planted and watered pollinator plants donated from the Contemporary Garden Club of Princeton, Princeton Day School, D & R Greenway, Littlebrook School, and Morven Museum and Gardens.

We would like to thank Mayor Lempert for supporting the Monument project and we encourage you, like so many have done, to use your gardens to save the bees so that the bees can save us. For more information go to AdkAction.org/pollinators, monarchlab.org and bees-decline.org.

Jody Erdman

Mountain Avenue