Sustainable Sourcing
How does collecting butterflies save the rainforest?
Virgin tropical forests are declining at an alarming rate - over half have been cleared in the last 40 years. The case for saving tropical forests is clear. Support comes from buying “products of the rainforest.”
Our butterflies come from butterfly conservation breeding farms from all over the world (mainly South America, Africa and South East Asia). Raising or collecting insects to sell is the only incentive many indigenous peoples have to save their tropical forests. Rather than resorting to clearing the land for logging or cattle raising, villagers realise that the forest can be a continual source of income for them. That gives them great incentive to protect their areas.
Eggs laid on leaves in the wild rainforests are collected and hatched in the farms. In the wild, only a very small percentage (about 5%) of butterfly eggs survive to adulthood. Butterfly farms have much higher survival rates, approximately 80%. Most of the less colourful female butterflies hatched on farms are released into the wild to lay more eggs in a rainforest that would have been destroyed years ago if not for the protection of the farms. So collecting butterflies actually saves butterflies & the rainforest!
None of our butterflies are endangered or illegal to own. Butterflies can be “rare” to collectors but not endangered. Some tropical butterflies only come from one small area and can only be obtained from a single butterfly farm, while others are available from numerous farms.