Homegrown National Park® (HNP) raises awareness and urgently inspires everyone to address the biodiversity crisis by adding native plants and removing invasive ones where we live, work, learn, pray, and play.
ABOUT US
Mission
To regenerate biodiversity because all humans need healthy, productive ecosystems to survive.
The Urgent Challenge: Wait…there’s a crisis?
We’ve reached a critical point. Local ecosystems are losing large and growing numbers of species. This reduces their ability to provide the ecosystem services we rely on. We all depend on these crucial services like clean air and water, flood control, pollination for our food, pest control, and carbon storage.
The Simple Solution: Accessible and Measurable
HNP is grassroots call-to-action. We help you understand the biodiversity crisis by breaking it down to a clear problem with a science-based solution:
Add native plants and remove invasive ones everywhere that we live, work, learn, pray, and play.
Then, we help you Start a New Habitat®, so you can have fun becoming a biodiversity hero! With your help, we’ll build a future that is full of the plants and animals which sustain us. Anyone can be part of this movement - individuals, businesses, nonprofits, farms, schools, places of worship, and more. It’s easy, it’s free, and no experience is needed!
Why Natives?
A native plant is a species that naturally occurs within a specific ecosystem (without human intervention) and shares an evolutionary history with the other species in that area. These relationships make them crucial for the health and productivity of that ecosystem. Without them, ecosystem services collapse, threatening the systems our communities depend on to survive.
Our Name
The name Homegrown National Park® (HNP) was coined by our cofounder Professor Doug Tallamy to describe a new culture where we all make a difference in our habitats. This is the key to our call-to-action:
“Our National Parks, no matter how grand in scale, are too small and separated from one another to preserve (native) species to the levels needed. Thus, the concept for Homegrown National Park, a bottom-up call-to-action to restore habitat where we live and work, and to a lesser extent where we farm and graze, extending national parks to our yards and communities.”
The HNP Biodiversity Map
The Biodiversity Map is an interactive, community-based visual tool that tracks the total area occupied by native plants. It is designed to be the epicenter of biodiversity regeneration by consolidating and amplifying all the extraordinary work being done by individuals and organizations across the US and Canada. The Map provides a dynamic visual, showing individuals their part in the greater whole and pinpointing where habitats are thriving and where more are desperately needed.
We encourage everyone to join, set a planting goal, and share their planting site(s). This can range from a single native plant in a container on a porch or rooftop to a substantial meadow, forest, or prairie.
What are you waiting for? Start a new Habitat and get it on the Biodiversity Map. Every square foot of native plants counts!