Lessons Learned
With our support, the
Tanzania Forest Conservation Group expanded the Amani butterfly project to enable more communities to engage in butterfly farming as an income-generating activity, helping to link livelihoods and maintaining healthy, intact forest cover.
Charles Meshack, Executive Director, Tanzania Forest Conservation Group
What was the most important lesson learned?
The Amani Butterfly project has shown that butterfly farming can be a financially and ecologically sustainable enterprise that can generate considerable support for forest conservation amongst farmers living around high biodiversity forests.
This is best achieved where biodiversity conservation awareness and conservation incentives are integrated into the design from the beginning and where there is close monitoring and regular evaluation. For example through regular evaluations, the project has learnt that it is advisable to focus on the Papilio butterfly species as there is a lot of demand for this species because it is attractive and has a longer pupal stage, making it easier to ship abroad. The project now encourages farmers to focus on this species so as to meet the market demand.
Describe how you learned this and whether / how you have adapted your approach or specific project elements as a result.
The Amani Butterfly Project has positively promoted forest conservation and improved income through butterfly farming in the East Usambara Mountain forests.
The butterfly farmers in the East Usambara depend upon the local forest as the initial source of pregnant butterflies for eggs and as a continuing source of food for the developing larvae, many of which require species of plants only found in the healthy forest.
Butterfly farming is linked to the conservation of natural environments that include the species of plants on which butterfly larvae feed.
Four villages in the East in the East Usambara were initially participating in the project, however with funding from CEPF the Executive Committee of butterfly farmers involved in the project proposed to add two more villages to the project. These expansion villages included Mbomole and Shebomeza, where a number of people were trained on the techniques of farming the papilio species.
The papilio butterfly species is difficult to farm, however it is attractive and stays longer in the shipping process. As a result of this, the project produced enough variety of species, which resulted in including middlemen in the marketing of these pupae and proved a significant diversification of the market.
Earning from pupae increased from US$ 45,000 in 2005 to over US$ 55,000 in 2006. At least 65 percent of total project earnings go directly to the farmers as pupae payment. An additional 7 percent of earnings go into a community development fund shared by the six villages involved in the project.
In conjunction with the fact that the ecological monitoring shows that there is no impact on the wild butterfly populations and the positive switch in perception of the local population engaged in these activities toward the forests, butterfly farming does indeed produce a triple win.
- June 20, 2008
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