Warwick, UK - Researchers at the University of Warwick's plant research arm Warwick HRI have received a 295,000 pound Darwin initiative grant to develop a butterfly farming industry in Guyana that will help support 5000 people in 16 rainforest communities and help save the rainforest itself.

The creation of a sustainable butterfly farming business would help preserve the local rain forest in two ways. Firstly the local population will have a sustainable business that allows them to turn away from other activities that would involve yet more forest clearance and secondly that butterfly farming actually needs to conserve the rainforest because that is the butterflies' preferred habitat.