Butterfly park coming up in Greater Noida

Beautiful and frail – butterflies may soon have a dedicated habitat in Greater Noida’s Surajpur wetland.

To conserve rare varieties of butterflies, the Uttar Pradesh forest department is mulling over a proposal to develop a butterfly park in Greater Noida’s Surajpur wetland. More than 50 rare varieties of butterflies including Painted Lady and Great Orange Tip are expected to be conserved in the proposed park.

The Gautam Budh Nagar forest department on Friday said that it has started drafting project report,which will be sent for approvals from chief forest conservator.

The move of developing a butterfly park comes after forest conservator Hament Kumar from Meerut visited Surajpur wetland in mid July. After inspection of wetland, conservator suggested that if a butterefly park is developed in wetland then it will give a major boost to wildlife conservation plan.

“Following conservator’s suggestions, we have started drafting the project report. Once project report is approved from UP chief wildlife conservator, we will send the project report to the Greater Noida authority,which will fund this project. If funding will not be an issue work on the project will start on ground,” said NC Upadhyay range officer.

Since construction is banned in Surajpur wetland, the butterfly conservation project would involve planting trees and flora-fauna, which attracts butterfly and offer them a conducive environment for growth.

According to officials and experts estimate, about 12, 000 migratory birds mostly from Ladakh, and Europe throng Surajpur wetland in Greater Noida, during winters. The wetland spread on 325 hectare of land consisting 80 hectare of natural lake is located on Dadri-Surajpur-Chhalera (DSC) road in Greater Noida, 20 kilometers away from Noida.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)- India working with UP forest officials to conserve Surajpur wetland would also help in drafting plan for butterfly park project.

“WWF is working as consultant with us and their help in developing a butterfly park would be essential because butterfly conservation is a very delicate subject. Watching these beautiful psychedelic winged creatures is sheer joy but conservation is a challenge,” said KK Singh divisional forest officer GautamBudh Nagar.