4:10pm Thursday 20th March 2008
By Melanie Dakin
IT'S good news for Britain's butterflies and great news for local people as Sir David Attenborough marked the start of construction on Butterfly World in Chiswell Green, a £25m pound project to help reverse the alarming decline in UK butterfly species.
As work began at the 26-acre site, Sir David Attenborough and Professor David Bellamy attended the London launch and David Bellamy also joined Butterfly World founder Clive Farrell for the St Albans launch at Sopwell House.
At the St Albans launch, David Bellamy revealed that, as a small boy before World War Two, he often visited Verulamium Park, where butterflies were common, with his aunt, who lived in Chiswell Green.
He says: "Our lives were surrounded with butterflies. Even in east London where I was brought up, there were butterflies everywhere in those days.
"We have lost them as we do not think enough about them. We are the people who have helped kill them off."
He blamed the destruction of hedgerows, and excessive use of agricultural pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser.
Butterfly World will be the world's biggest walk-through butterfly experience with more than 10,000 tropical butterflies in flight at any one time, creating a kaleidoscope of movement and colour filling the 100m biome. Sections of the dome will be submerged to incorporate underground caverns featuring many tropical creatures including scorpions and spiders.
From as early as June next year, landscape designer Ivan Hicks will have turned the site into a series of wildlife meadows forming the shape of a butterfly, with the biome as its eye due for completion in 2010.
The biome will contain more than 10,000 tropical butterflies at any one time with 250 different species displayed from around the world. The surrounding gardens will feature antennae walkways, a chrysalis pond and a spiral proboscis walk - each with specially selected nectar food plants to attract indigenous butterflies. Butterfly World will also feature educational and research facilities, a restaurant, café and shop.
The attraction is intended to be the ultimate butterfly experience and one which gives equal prominence to indigenous and tropical species. It is expected to attract, educate and inspire up to 1m visitors when it is fully operational in the spring 2011 and ten per cent of the profits will be donated to the Butterfly World Trust to invest into research, conservation and community projects.
After years of fundraising, Clive is now ready to complete the first phase of the project. He says: "Making butterfly spotting accessible gets people in touch with nature. Butterflies are essential indicators of the health of the environment, as well as being beautiful and quite wonderful to watch. It's an honour to be recognised for doing something I love."
Clive has dedicated his life to the insects, and worked on a butterfly breeding farm in Belize. He is confident his experience in encouraging them at his home in Dorset will enable him to develop a superb habitat for wild butterflies in Chiswell Green.
He tells me visitors to Butterfly World will learn how to manage their own gardens and land for butterflies.
Clive says: "Back gardens are very important - together they total more than every national nature reserve in Britain. They are a hugely important resource."
Sir David Attenborough warns what will happen if we don't take action.
He says: "More than three quarters of British butterfly species have declined in the last 20 years. For the sake of future generations we must take action now.
"Butterfly World is doing just that. It is putting the issues on the agenda and is seeking to help reverse this environmental catastrophe."
How to attract butterflies into your garden
If you're looking to invite butterflies into your garden, make room for a buddleia, butterflies go mad for them, though be sure to give this vigorous plant plenty of room. Nettles, grasses, sedum, aubretia, aster, honeysuckle, primroses and polyanthus are good for attracting butterflies as well as herbs such as rosemary, thyme, echinacea, majoram, mint and lavender. Trailing ivy also provides a good home for hibernating butterflies.
Details: www.butterfly-world.org, /www.butterfly-conservation.org
Butterfly exhibition
In the meantime, butterfly enthusiasts can pop along to the Natural History Museum in London from Saturday, April 5 and explore Amazing Butterflies a new display featuring a giant maze and butterfly house. Tickets: www.nhm.ac.uk
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