In 2011 my father inaugurated Sri Lanka’s first open air, urban butterfly garden at our MJF Centre West in Moratuwa, on the outskirts of Colombo. Yesterday it was reopened – an expanded, revitalised Dilmah Butterfly Garden. The assembled environmentalists and nature lovers – including the eminent scientist, Dr. Jagath Gunawardena and Rajika Gamage, the passionate butterfly expert behind the project – joined our Dilmah Conservation Team and I, in inaugurating the space.
Moments after opening the facility, it was very clear – while walking through the garden – that this was not only a butterfly garden. In their comments, Dr. Jagath and Rajika explained its ecological value, the importance of butterflies as pollinators, its environmental value, in connecting people with Nature. All true, but those are only part of the reasons for my doubt.
The MJF Centre West receives hundreds of visitors every month, Students from nearby Moratuwa University, from schools and other universities, volunteers from Sri Lanka and abroad, the children and youth from the programmes at the Centre for people with disability, elders, less fortunate youth and women. Observing the interaction of some of these visitors with the butterflies, their amazement at the complex ecosystem we call Nature, it was obvious that this garden is something altogether greater than a butterfly garden.
It is a place of Peace, for immersion in Nature induces calm – not just tranquility and peace of mind, but mental and physical calm with proven impact on mental and cardiovascular health. Lower levels of cortisol (stress hormone) delivers reduced anxiety, better mood and emotional well-being, lower risk of psychiatric disorders and elevated brain function. Time spent in Nature strengthens human immune systems, reduces blood pressure, improves attention, memory, and creativity and helps with concentration. That’s not my assertion, it’s an observation based on 832 independent studies on the human health benefits of connection with nature.
It’s a design Laboratory. If you have never observed the vivid intricacy of wing patterns and colouration on butterflies, every entrepreneur, designer and scientist must. The richness and complexity of the interrelationship of design and purpose in patterns, colours and the rationale in both is as good an explanation of the truth that form must follow function.
Some are designed for defence, some for camouflage, but every pixel that God designed in the wings of butterflies has a function connected to the wider natural environment in which each species of butterfly exists. The patterns are more creative than anything I have seen from illustrators and creative agencies around the world, the colour palettes vastly more sophisticated.
Our Dilmah Butterfly Garden is not really just a butterfly garden. It’s an laboratory for the study of insect pollinators and the future of food security, it’s a biodiversity research facility for a better understanding of genetic diversity and ecosystem resilience, it’s an indicator of a healthy climate as butterflies are an important indicator of environmental health, it is a space for creative inspiration. Butterflies have inspired artists from Salvador Dali to Damien Hirst. It is a science lab, for the study of evolution and ecology. It is an oasis of calm on the edge of a metropolis, offering mental and physical well-being.
It’s also a butterfly garden for the study of one of nature’s most engaging species and an understanding of the economic, social, ecological, cultural, environmental and medical value of butterflies and their natural ecosystem. Perception is subjective, and for centuries beauty has been known to be ‘in the eye of the beholder.’ Where Nature – and butterflies – are concerned, we humans need to broaden our perspective to value what our ancestors took for granted, for in Nature – hidden within the imprecise term ‘ecosystem services’ – is the solution to virtually every challenge we face, including direction on how we could overcome the present existential crisis.
We desperately need a change in perception away from another imprecise concept – extreme climate. Nature is a system in intricate and perfect balance, form following function – like the wings of a butterfly. It offers guidance to its benefits openly, even in a Butterfly Garden, although we ignore those cues to our peril. It’s important that we understand – the survival of the mankind depends on it.
