Kenya: Butterfly Farming at Its Best

KAKAMEGA, KENYA----Kakamega Forest, about 23,000 hectares in space, is found in Western Kenya. It was established to protect the only mid altitude tropical rainforest in Kenya, a remnant of a belt of rainforests once stretching to West Africa, and is famed for its bird and primate species which include the cash cow butterflies.

A community-based group has worked out alternative incomes from the forest in a bid to save this ecosystem. They term the forest as the last remaining Guineo-Congolian type of rain forest left in Kenya.

The Kenyan government has worked to keep woodcutters and farmers out of the forest and is now encouraging community projects, like butterfly cultivation, as a way of providing alternative incomes.

More than 70 percent of Kenya’s butterflies and more than 500 different species are found in Kakamega forest. Since its launch in 2001, butterfly farming has turned out to be a money spinner for the communities around the forests, earning farmers the equivalent of over US$100,000 annually according to a Kenya Forest Service annual report.

Catch a glimpse of what happens in Kakamega forest in the video below.