August 1998 
7 
amount of the original grant, and in the following month 
total community earnings had topped KSh 1,000,0000, 
Early in 1998, the US$ 100,000 and KSh 2,000,000 
milestones were passed. Markets have expanded from 
one UK client in 1994 to 7 in Brazil, UK and the US in 
1998 and the number of butterfly species exported has 
risen from 14 in 1994 to 32 in 1998. 
Surveys were conducted on the target community 
before the project began in 1993 and again in 1997. 
The 1997 survey found that the project had had 
significant impact on both attitudes and incomes of the 
participating farmers. The proportion wishing to 
conserve at least part of the forest had risen from 41 % 
in 1993 to 84%, and butterfly earnings were estimated 
to contribute some 73% of farmer’s cash incomes from 
farm products. These figures may however have been 
influenced by the respondents desire to please, and need 
to be independently validated. The African Wildlife 
Foundation (AWF) will do this later this year (1998) 
using more sophisticated techniques. 
A more concrete demonstration of impacts on 
attitudes has emerged from the farmers’ actions, which 
have helped to influence land use policy at the local 
and national level. Part of the forest has been threatened 
with excision and was invaded by squatters in 1994. 
Some of the Kipepeo farmers protested to the local 
District Commissioner against this development One 
of the Kipepeo Self-Help Groups {formed with the 
assistance of the project) delivered a protest letter to a 
Presidential Commission, when it visited to investigate 
the matter. In December 1997, a spokesman for the 
farmers went to the press, saying in the Daily Nation 
that the forest should be left alone and that any excisions 
would deprive them of their butterfly farming income. 
President Moi has now made it clear that there would 
be no excisions at Arabuko-Sokoke. 
Kipepeo has also contributed to awareness raising 
about the forest and its global biodiversity significance. 
Two short videos on the project have been broadcast on 
international television (one on more than 80 different 
TV channels worldwide), and radio interviews have been 
aired on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and Studio 
Brussels. There have been numerous articles on the 
project in magazines and the national and international 
press. Talks on the project have been given in Kenya, 
Britain, Costa Rica and the US. One of the American 
exhibits which purchases Kipepeo butterflies (the 
Philadelphia Academy of Sciences) also features 
photographic and textual displays on the forest and the 
project and two more will do so in 1999. Over 4,500 
local and international visitors to the project have learned 
about the forest, and 17 Wildlife Clubs have been 
established by Kipepeo in forest adjacent schools. More 
than 30 school, polytechnic and university groups have 
also visited the project. 
Contributions to capacity building have included 
community training in butterfly farming and in the 
organisation and running of Self-Help Groups, linguistic 
training for Kipepeo guides, overseas training in 
Conservation Biology at the University of Chicago, and 
supervision and assistance in obtaining funding for 
postgraduate degrees (one MSc and two PhDs) for two 
Kenyan scientists. 
LESSONS LEARNED 
Some of the lessons learned relate to the success factors 
described earlier: the value of partnerships, the 
importance of market conditions, and the simplicity and 
appropriateness of operational techniques. Others relate 
specifically to the technical aspects of rearing butterflies. 
The following lessons are additional: 
• Business Skills. No-one on the Kipepeo team had 
any formal business skills, and this led to 
weaknesses in financial management, commercial 
negotiations and marketing and promotion. Cash 
flow problems and bad debts were mishandled, 
particularly in the early years when almost $ 4.000 
was lost when a client went bankrupt. For almost 
two years the project had only one market outlet. 
These mistakes would have been avoided or lessened 
if professional business support had been available 
from the beginning. Kipepeo now has a financial 
and small business advisor, a Japanese volunteer, 
and is receiving further assistance from the 
Community Economics and Commerce Programme 
(CECP) of the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) 
• Community Response. At the beginning of the 
project there was skepticism from some quarters 
as to whether small-scale farmers from a 
conservative ethnic group would take up an activity 
like butterfly farming. Yet once the first farmer 
had received money for the first butterfly, we had 
problems in keeping project recruitment to 
manageable levels. If an idea works and if it brings 
quick rewards with little effort, it will ho adopted 
even when it is culturally bizarre, 
• Altitudinal Impact. There are signs of a backlash 
against the community and development approach 
to building local support for conservation. The only 
way to properly evaluate this issue is through careful 
before and after surveys. The 1993 and 1997 surveys 
of the Kipepeo farmers were therefore vital, bui 
more sophisticated techniques are available now 
than the straight-forward questionnaires that were 
used. With the assistance of the AWF CECP. these 
will be used to lest the conclusions of the 1997 
survey. 
• Project scale. Kipepeo is a small project facing a 
big problem and it is painfully obvious that it cannot 
resolve the complex issues of community-forest 
relationships on its own. Yet its impact relative to 
input has been significant, A much larger earlier 
project at Arabuko-Sokoke, backed by millions of 
dollars of bilateral aid, collapsed without any 
benefits to the local community when funding was 
withdrawn after a three-year planning phase. 
Kipepeo is a paradigm for thinking globally and 
acting locally, and big donors should find more 
ways to support small projects. 
