Friday, March 7, 2014

Casa de Mariposa!



Butterflies, so often symbolic of rejuvenation, luck, love, as well as simply being beautiful to watch, are abundant at the CCEP site. Nick and Meg, new Workaway volunteers from Australia, were delighted by the multitude of butterflies on the property when taking a walk through the eco park site. They believed that the butterflies would be a drawcard for visitors to CCEP, and looked into butterfly farming as a potential project for CCEP. What they found was very promising! Successful butterfly farms have been established in nearby countries such as Costa Rica and El Salvador as environmentally sustainable projects that provide economically and environmentally sustainable work for local residents. With a relatively small start-up cost, butterfly farmers build an enclosure in which they collect eggs and raise pupae of native butterflies for sale to collectors or for releases (people like to ‘release’ butterflies at special events such as weddings and funerals). A butterfly house at CCEP has the potential to buy these butterflies for distribution, as well as for an educational butterfly house on the site for visitors. The project would support the rural economy, diversifying income measures, and the work can fit around existing schedules of house-holding. The farmers benefit from encouraging the natural environment to flourish with natives, so the environmental impact is nothing but positive.

CCEP will be investigating further into the prospect of creating work for locals via a butterfly house and distribution business, because who wouldn't want more butterflies in their lives? 

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