Deeply concerned about the steep decline of insect pollinators due to devastating environmental impacts, a group of runners trace the migration path of the monarch butterflies across three countries as they organized a 4,300 kilometre relay run, aiming to raise awareness for pollinator conservation
Cast
Rodney Fuentes – Film Director, Narrator
Rodney is a filmmaker with high interest in nature conservation. He has produce several short films for organizations that wants to tell an environmental story. The Monarch Ultra is Rodney’s first featured documentary! Always searching for great environmental stories, Rodney brings his background in tourism and conservation to story-telling where he has been producing films for the last 8 years.
Rodney helped organized The Monarch Ultra event in 2019 and became a co-founder along with Carlotta James and Clay Williams.
Carlotta James – Director Monarch Ultra
The brain behind The Monarch Ultra, Carlotta came up with the idea while running on a trail in Peterborough. She’s the motor behind the project and the person that produced the miracle of connecting 3 countries to work together towards monarch butterfly conservation. Carlotta worked on the logistics and coordination of the Monarch Ultra.
Carlotta also trained to run her first 50 km ultra marathon. She ended up running a total of 450 kms in the 2019 relay run to Mexico. On route, she gave many presentations to schools and conservation groups, including a presentation at San Antonio’s city hall about The Monarch Ultra and climate change
Clay Williams – Run Director
Clay brought his experience on organizing long running events to The Monarch Ultra. He is the creator of The Canal Pursued, a 700 + km run from Port Severn to Ottawa along the Trent Severn and Rideau canals to raise awareness on mental health. Clay designed the running route and assisted runners during the event. He also helped with few public presentations and overall logistics. Clay is also an ultra-runner and he ran about 400 km during the relay.
Having an engineering background, environmentalism is a new realm for Clay. As we travelled south, he developed a deeper understanding of conservation and community actions.
Günther Schuberts – Chef, Logistics
Günther participated in the 2019 run as the team chef, driver, and helped with overall logistics. An environmentalist at heart and a member of the Rotary Club of the Peterborough Kawartha, Günther joined the team and brought his expertise in environmentalism and event planning.
Having a chef in the crew was wonderful. Gunter was able to manage the tiny kitchen in the RV and cooked delicious gourmet style meals every day during our trip. It was very important to us to eat healthy and avoid eating out as much as possible. Günther made the RV our home during our journey to Mexico
CAROL PASTERNAK
The Monarch Crusader
DREW MONKMAN
Naturalist, Writer
DR. SUSAN CHAN
University of Guelph
JERRY JERRARD
Kawartha Lakes Honey
MARISOL CAMPOS-NAVARRETE
PHD Indigenous Studies
GUSTAVO LOPEZ
Director, Nación Verde