by Richard (Tunisia, '69) and Lonna (Ethiopia, '68 and Ghana '69) Harkrader

        In the fall of 1996 a delegation from San Ramon, Nicaragua attended a presentation on raising butterflies at the Museum of Life and Science. The enthusiasm generated by the workshop led to the start of a butterfly farm at Finca Esperanza Verde (Green Hope Farm), a joint development project of the Durham sister community committee, the South West Durham Rotary Club and the Asociación para el Desarrollo de la Familia Campesina de San Ramón (Association for the Development of Campesino Families in San Ramon), an association of 300 rural farmers.
        In January 1999 a delegation from Durham, including an entomologist, John Wallace, RPCV (Guatemala '90), and two of his students visited Esperanza Verde to train several members of the Association in butterfly pupa propagation and to build a 600 square foot butterfly pavilion. At the end of the delegation a local campesino, Sergio Montoya, was hired to develop the raising of butterfly pupa and associated plants.
In April 1999 Peter Knudsen, a butterfly expert from Raleigh visited the farm for one week to carry out more training.  Much to everyone's surprise, Sergio and Yelba Valenzuela, the farm administrator, were able to successfully raise several varieties of butterflies, secure transportation and permission for exportation from Nicaragua, and start exporting pupa to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham in only three months. The shipments were small at first but have grown to 200 in the short time span of  9 months.
         Butterflies, as well as both tropical and North American song birds which winter in Nicaragua,  and other wildlife cannot survive without the extensive tropical forests found in San Ramón and throughout Central America. An important goal of the butterfly project and Finca Eperanza Verde is to find economic activities that enable small farmers to earn a living on their land while  being stewards of  the forests, animals and their habitat. The projects promote this by educating farmers and their families about the importance of habitat preservation, encouraging organic agriculture and soil/forest conservation and by demonstrating sound business planning and practices.
        Butterflies are raised by capturing only a dozen wild butterflies and keeping them in the pavilion where their host plants for egg laying are cultivated. The pavilion is closely supervised and after eggs are laid they are removed to screened cages to protect them from parasites and predators.  After the eggs hatch into caterpillars, they are fed their host plant's leaves until they pupate. This requires the growing of a large garden of appropriate plants for caterpillar food. Once a month the pupa are collected for shipment to the Museum of Life and Science.
        The beautiful butterfly pavilion is another attraction for developing ecotourism at Finca Esperanza Verde.  The profits from all these projects support projects that the Association carries out to enhance the lives of rural farm families in San Ramón.
        To learn more about the butterfly farm, you may contact committee member Dr.Barbara Sheline, 919 490-8620; sheli002@mc.duke.edu.