Lore Lindu's rare butterflies face extinction

Badri Jawara, The Jakarta Post, Palu, Central Sulawesi

Yellow, orange, white, brown, red, black and black and white- spotted butterflies are flying freely in groups everywhere.

Once in a while these butterflies perch on twigs, bushes, stones but mostly flowers before taking off again, their beautiful colors attracting people's attention.

Unfortunately, this sight could only be seen 10 years ago.

According to Aristan of the Merah Putih Foundation, the swarms of colorful butterflies had disappeared.

Aristan, who has 15 years of experience guiding people through the Lore Lindu National Park in Palu, Central Sulawesi, blamed butterfly poacher. The government seemed powerless to stop the practice, he said.

Out of hundreds of butterfly species, some are protected and under the law, cannot be poached or traded.

But the poaching practice goes on, speeding up the extinction of the butterfly population. When a species is declared endangered, poachers take notice as it will fetch a higher price in the market.

Though the national park's forest rangers claim to have arrested dozens of poachers in the region this year, the illegal practice seems unstoppable, threatening the future of rare butterflies living in the national park.

Head of the Lore Lindu National Park, Banjar Yulianto Laban, said that rampant poaching of endangered butterflies in the conservation area was triggered by high prices in overseas markets.

"It (poaching) is a really attractive business to them since the price of a single butterfly can be as high as hundreds of thousands of rupiah," Banjar said.

He added that generally, poaching was conducted to meet export orders. Usually, they were exported to Japan and England.

In some East Asian and European countries, rare butterflies from the Lore Lindu National Park are used for medicinal concoctions and decorations.

Banjar said that poachers generally come from outside Central Sulawesi and many of them simply ignored the presence of forest rangers patrolling the national park.

He said that many butterfly poachers pretended to be local villagers living around the national park. When they were caught red handed, they said they did it to feed their families, Banjar said.

"With such an excuse, sometimes we find it difficult to prosecute the poachers as it becomes a human issue," Banjar said. However, he added, his office had warned certain irresponsible people to stop poaching the butterflies.

If the warning was repeatedly ignored the authorities would take stern measures and bring them to court, he said.

Endangered species of butterflies eyed by poachers include Papilio blumei, a butterfly species with a shining blue tail; P. sataspes, a species with white wings with dark orange spots; and P. asacalapus, a broad-winged species with dark-brown base color.

In the local market, prices of rare butterflies range from Rp 10,000 and Rp 40,000 each while overseas the prices might reach hundreds of thousands rupiah each.

The Lore Lindu National Park's data showed there were about 31 rare species of butterflies living in the 219,000-hectare conservation area, located on the border area between Donggala and Poso regencies.

As many as six species of butterflies: Papilio ascalapus, P. gigon, P. sataspes, P. fuscus, P. polytes and Graphium agemenmon have been traditionally bred in captivity by people living around the national park.