A Blue Tiger Butterfly |
Butterfly is the last word comes in mind while walking
through the congested roads of Sodhpur, an industrial suburb near Kolkata at
North 24 Pargana. The loud honking of trucks, narrow, stinking lanes and the
polluted air, rather denies every existence of greenery or nature. But once
enter the house of Somnath Pal Das the feeling evaporates instantly. The 35
year old power plant engineer has transformed the 600 Sq Ft free space in front
of his house into a garden, where 58 species of butterflies live as permanent
residents.
Along with the ‘Butterfly Garden’, Somnath runs a Caterpillar
Rescue and Rehab Centre and a consultancy that provides guidance to the nature
lovers to establish butterfly garden on the heart of the polluted city, which
is a wonder in itself. Somnath is not
the only one though, 35 year old Arjan Basu Roy, a printing engineer and the
founder of Nature Mates-Nature Club NGO has been doing the same for last 4
years in different parts of West Bengal.
Being extremely pollution sensitive, butterflies have died out from most part of the city, mostly due
to collision with high speed cars and radio waves generated by mobile towers. Even
in rural areas their numbers are fast decreasing for extensive use of chemical
fertilizer and pesticides. And to address this problem few nature lovers in the
city have shown a unique solution for these insects to grow and live by making natural
‘pockets’ and named them as Butterfly Garden.
Somnath with a Common Mormon Butterfly |
Infact, Somnath has a very interesting story to share about
the migration of butterflies in his garden. One day, while in office, his wife
called and described about the sighting of a unique butterfly she had never
seen. Hearing the description Somnath asked her to take some picture and mail him
at once. He was stunt by the photos he received in next few hours. “It was a Gaudy
Baron, a species of North Bengal and extremely hard, if not impossible, to find
in Kolkata. And surprisingly it stayed for few days in the garden”, Somnath
says. And after few months, after the first one left, two more female Goudy
Barons came to his garden and spent few days.
Once enter the tiny garden of Somnath- the serene green
sight with unusual number of butterflies flattering around- it becomes clear
why those Gaudy Barons spent days here. Walking through the earthen path in the
garden Somnath says “I have hardly spent Rs 600 on my garden; everything is
here either collected or bought in extremely low coast.” And it was a truth;
the plants that made the bushes are all locals gathered from wild bushes or by
the sides of rail tracks, and to form a ‘natural ecosystem’ expensive pesticides
or fertilizer have no use here
Common Leopard Butterfly |
Sitting on a wooden chair, in his lab, at one side of a
wooden desk Somnath explains “Planting random decorative plants would not help
at all.” The requirement of plants
depends on the research, before making a garden, on the native butterflies and
their host plants. Arjan Basu Roy, who has created butterfly garden named Banabitan at Salt Lake Central Park,
agrees with Somnath when he says “The proper placement of plant is equally
important. There are few plants in which butterflies lay eggs and there are
plants that provide food for them. So, it is absolutely necessary to plant all
the variety to help these beauties complete their life cycle.”
And, in order to do so, the native plants are the only
option. “The butterflies that would come to live in the newly established
garden would be local and they wouldn’t do so if the plants are alien in
nature. So, these plants should be given the utmost importance”, Somnath
explains, by pointing at the soil moulded plants kept at the corner of the
room, “And it can be done in any amount of space, be it is a three Sq Foot
balcony or a one acre land”, says he.
Rescued Plain Tiger Caterpillar's Pupa |
“See! This is the beauty of the butterfly garden! Being at
the bottom of the food chain it attracts many predators. And in this way you
are attracting many other insects, animal and birds”, Somnath informs. Who
believes this is the best way to conserve not only butterflies, but also many
other insects and birds. Currently there are 23 species of spider and 10
different species of birds in his garden. “95% of total wild life fund of the
country is mainly used for large animals like tiger, rino and elephant. But no
one thinks about the grassroots level conservation”, informs Arjan, who hopes
to turn Kolkata in to ‘city of butterflies’ by 2015.
Even though there are butterfly gardens in many other countries
around the world but all of them either into cage or glass doom. But Nature
lovers like Arjan and Somnath promotes the idea of open air butterfly gardening.
Even though the death of each insect by predators hurts them like anything, they
seem to sustain the pain for a greater good. “A butterfly garden should be a
complete biodiversity garden”, informs Arjan.
The grassroots level conservation, according to Arjan, is
the best way to protect the wildlife. In this system any person can directly
contribute to the conservation. It is hardly possible for any urban person to
go to Sundarban and work for the conservation of the tiger, “But here all you
have to do is to implant few specific plants and look after them”, says he.
However, along with animals butterfly garden helps to
conserve the local variety of plants, having high medicinal value, as well,
which is also of utmost importance. The native plants are fast disappearing due
to unscientific gardening, rapid urbanization and plantation of ornamental
foreign plants that has nothing to do with the local ecosystem. “The ornamental
plants specially the foreign plants might increase the visual pleasure but in a
way it hampers the local ecosystem. Being a foreign plant no local insect would
live or breed in it, and so the biodiversity that is suppose to grow surrounding the plant would not take
place.
Other than wildlife conservation, butterfly garden has
endless other positive dimensions. Being a master pollinator, butterflies helps
the plants to spread their seeds thus reproduce. Moreover, butterflies create
an immense positive effect of human psyche, according to Somnath, it releases
stress for the adult and increases intelligence among the children. “My 5 year
old boy can tell you more than 30 scientific names of birds and butterflies”,
informs he, and “it has been only possible due to the garden.” More of it, butterflies are extremely
pollution sensitive and acts as a sensor of pollution. It the butterflies are
living in a place, it can be believed blindly, it is pollution free.
The Gaudy Baron came to Somnath's garden |
And not only the forest department but various schools and
colleges also have taken the initiative of establishing butterfly garden like
St. John’s Diocesan School, Bethune College, Presidency College etc.
Likewise 19 year old Manas Sarkar has been enjoying all
these benefits for last two years. “It acts as a source of mental peace for me”,
says Manas, a B A first year student, a owner of 750 sq ft Butterfly garden.
Two years ago who came to know about butterfly garden and his passion for
wildlife photography dragged him toward the hobby.
That reminds Somnath, the Butterfly garden maker, the
incident of Alipore Zoological Garden and who didn’t know anything about
butterflies before that. One chilli December morning Somnath went to Alipore
zoo to explore his brand new Sony SLR camera. At an abandoned and ill
maintained corner, in the zoo, he found hundreds of butterflies on a heap of
garbage. Excited Somnath finished the memory card within an hour and returned
to the spot next week. But the “place was cleared and visitors of the zoo were picnicking”,
and he couldn’t find a single butterfly that day. The fates of those poor homeless insects touched
him so sorry that he vowed to give them a proper home in his own house.
And he has been living up to his words without a slightest
exception.