Butterfly farming for pro poor tourism and environment conservation

Original project description

The Zanzibar Butterfly Centre (ZBC) and the proposed Manyara Butterfly Centre are tourist attractions where visitors can see butterflies in botanical gardens. The butterflies are raised by local farmers and sold to ZBC for display or export. Butterflies require an intact ecosystem, creating incentives for the community to manage the local natural environment sustainably.

ZBC runs a botanical garden in Zanzibar. It trains local famers in raising butterflies and buys the butterfly pupae from them. The butterflies are then either kept in the botanical garden or exported. ZBC is the first operation of its kind in Tanzania. The success of the existing facility has encouraged the organisation to plan a second, larger butterfly centre near Lake Manyara. This will help to diversify the range of services offered to tourists and improve the incomes of smallholders.

Social impact: Butterfly farming helps the local community to diversify its income base. It has a positive long-term impact through providing basic training in business skills. The initiative also helps empower women, as the working hours are flexible and work can be done from home.

Environmental impact: The initiative creates a sense of ownership of natural resources and increases environmental awareness. The butterflies require an intact ecosystem, so the farmers have an incentive to protect their local environment.

Economic impact: By involving local farmers in the project and training them, the initiative contributes to the longterm alleviation of poverty in the region. ZBC not only buys the butterfly pupae but also sells on locally produced art and crafts, thus contributing to community development.

Current project updates

Last updated: 7 March 2013

2012 was a good year. The SEED Award ceremony in South Africa and the in-country SEED workshop generated international recognition and exposure. We managed to train 50 more butterfly famers for Zanzibar Butterfly Centre in order to increase the quantity of butterfly pupae for export. We have an additional two more clients from Europe and South Africa order 10,000 butterfly pupae every three weeks requiring us to make great efforts towards our farmer training.

Targets achieved:
• A project to install water at ZBC Butterfly Centre was completed at the end of the year
• Extensive training was conducted for six butterfly farming groups: Training duration was two days for each village, with the aim of empowering the groups with the knowledge about butterfly farming that will help them to increase their income and reduce direct dependency on the forest resources
• A two day field excursion to ZBC Butterfly Centre was carried out where 50 farmers went to see their fellow butterfly farmers how they are conducting butterfly farming
• A total of 50 more farmers were trained, 30 of them being women

Growth plans description

- Attract donor funding to finance the Manyara Butterfly Centre and training for farmers
- Plan and build the Manyara Butterfly Centre
- Train 300 new farmers as butterfly suppliers for ZBC
- Identify and put in place necessary steps to meet requirements in potential export markets

Current Needs

- Financing for Manyara Butterfly Centre and training for farmers
- Train more butterfly farmers for ZBC, focusing on women
- Improve export marketing at ZBC

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