The butterfly is an invertebrate. Beyond its beauty, it plays an important role in raising crop output by pollinating the flowers of plants. With climate change around the world, these creatures are disappearing, so parks are built in various countries to conserve them and to give people wholesome recreation.

There are special parks for butterflies around the world, and the biggest, "Butterfly World", is in Florida in the United States. Although there are few such initiatives in Bangladesh, there is a butterfly park on about 6 acres on Naval Academy Road in Patenga, Chattogram city. It is thought to be the first butterfly park in the Indian subcontinent.

Now a butterfly park has been built on about 5 acres at Tanzim Palli in Daulatpur village of Sarishabari upazila, Jamalpur. It was set up by Md Hasmat Ali, assistant professor in the Bangla department of Farhad Ali Memorial Degree College in Munsur Nagar union.

The park now has several hundred butterflies of about 30 species. A net-enclosed habitat 60 feet long, 40 feet wide and 20 feet high has been built to keep them. It has a range of plants butterflies like, such as rangan, mussaenda, nayantara, madhabilata, kamini, cosmos, lajjaboti and kadam.

He has also planted more than 50 kinds of plants as host plants for the butterflies, including areca palm, lychee, jhumkolata, ashshewra, lantana, kalkasunda, lemon, marigold, bherenda, mango and grape vine. Visitors crowd in from far and wide every day to see it.

The foundation stone of the park was laid on 6 August 2020 by Jahangirnagar University butterfly expert Professor Dr Monowar Hossain. It was later inaugurated on 26 December by the State Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Dr Md Murad Hasan MP.

Hasmat Ali said there was a flower garden next to his homestead. He would often sit on a swing there to enjoy the garden, and at those times he saw butterflies flocking in.

"I used to watch them, absorbed, and think how I wish I could keep these butterflies here for ever," he said. "From that thought, while learning about butterflies' way of life, I found out that there are about 20,000 species of butterfly in the world, and only 300 in Bangladesh. There are parks to conserve them and to entertain visitors. Then I decided to build a butterfly park at my homestead too."

He then contacted Jahangirnagar University butterfly expert Professor Dr Monowar Hossain, and began work on the park under his guidance. Later he contacted butterfly expert Professor Dr Abul Bashar of Dhaka University.

He also contacted Professor Dr Shafique Haider Chowdhury of Chittagong University, Bangladesh's first butterfly researcher and a butterfly expert. The park was built with their help. Hasmat Ali added that the conserved butterflies will later be released into nature so that they can help maintain the balance of plant life.

Upazila agriculture officer Abdullah Al Mamun said: "A butterfly first lays eggs; the egg becomes a larva, then a pupa, and then a full-grown butterfly. Because of indiscriminate pesticide use and barriers to their free movement, their breeding ability is being destroyed and butterflies are also dying."

Pleased with Hasmat Ali's initiative, he said: "The natural environment he has created for butterflies to roam and multiply will help them breed and will help with pollinating flowers and crops. The agriculture department will give him full support at all times."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.