The Brown County Community Foundation and the Brown County Pollinators group unveiled a new mural and pollinator park Thursday.
The town of Nashville recently started a mural campaign, which coincided with the collaboration between the foundation and the pollinator group.
“We had been working with the Brown County Pollinators on capturing an acreage of milkweed across the county to turn into pollinator habitat, understanding that the populations of monarchs are in rapid decline,” Community Foundation CEO Maddison Miller said.
Between 2001 and 2011, Indiana’s State Wildlife Action Plan said that the state lost nearly 100,000 acres of monarch and pollinator habitat. This adds to the issue of rapidly declining monarch butterfly populations, which declined 90% since 1969.
The pollinator park is next to the mural by Indianapolis artist Christina Hollering called Epic Flight, which was painted over plain concrete. Miller said there was no better opportunity than to collaborate with the mural campaign.
“It just seems natural that we would make our mural part of that project and highlight the importance of monarchs, milkweeds, and other pollinators in our community,” Miller said.
Growing up in Panama, Hollering’s art focuses on insects and pollinators, which she knew she wanted to add to the mural.
“I became passionate about studying them and learning about them, and then using my art as a way to educate people and hopefully instill that passion in them for conservation,” Hollering said.
Miller hopes that the mural will inspire change in the community.
“Beyond just an Instagramable moment for the people of Nashville, we hope that it will inspire people to create more native habitats and pollinator habitats in their own backyards,” Miller said.
The pollinator space will be fully established in the coming year. The mural and the space can be found next to the Brown County Community Foundation building in Nashville.
