Butterfly World - new £25m attraction A proposal to build a £25m indoor rainforest attraction in Hertfordshire to exhibit and breed rare butterflies will be launched this week. Here's an article from today's Sunday Times with further details: Conservationists give a lift to dwindling butterfly breeds - Times Online
That's really interesting, I wonder how much they will work also with temperate species, it's not just tropical butterflies under threat. Do you know where they are getting the funding from?
I agree it does sound interesting. The people behind it own the Stratford-upon-Avon Butterfly Farm. They have created an organisation called the Butterfly World Trust to launch this project. It has a swanky new website with a lot of information here: Butterfly World It seems as though they don't have any funding in place yet, so this thing could be quite some way off. I do hope they include some provision for conserving rare British species - as the website says, 4 of our native butterflies and 60 of our moth species became extinct in Britain in the 20th century. Looking at the plans, it seems as though there are some 26 acres of outdoor space which would be restored and planted to attract native butterflies.
Sure, I can imagine some kind of outdoor planting scheme to attract butterflies, but what I really hope is that they actually work to keep and propogate many temperate butterflies and moths. I guess to minimise the threat of escapees establishing themselves it would be wiser to stick to british species, but it would really be a first-rate establishment if it was to do more for natives than plant a few buddliea's and wildflower meadows. The UK doesn't really have a large, conservation-focused butterfly centre - many of the smaller places do excellent work, but this project has the potential to really do something special.
