Panaji: Amid shrinking natural habitats and rapid urbanisation, WWF-India’s Goa office has developed habitat gardens in six schools across the state, encouraging students to embrace a more nature-friendly approach to gardening and conservation.Established in July, the gardens have been created to recognise and encourage the six top-performing schools under WWF-India’s Mission Prakriti Green Schools project. The initiative is part of the organisation’s environmental education efforts undertaken in collaboration with govt.The project aims to create pockets of habitat for butterflies and other urban wildlife, while helping students understand the importance of biodiversity conservation. WWF-India’s Goa state coordinator Aditya Kakodkar said that awareness sessions are conducted in the participating schools to teach students how to care for the gardens and protect its fauna.“Due to urbanisation, there is a lack of spaces for butterflies. Very well-maintained, manicured gardens are not necessarily good for them. They need shrubs, thick bushes and different kinds of plants where they can live and breed,” said Kakodkar.The gardens are designed around two essential requirements of a butterfly’s life cycle — host plants and nectar plants. Host plants provide food for caterpillars and places for butterflies to lay their eggs, while nectar-bearing flowers feed adult butterflies.Kakodkar said people must also avoid spraying pesticides and chemicals on plants, particularly when caterpillars are present. Often mistaken for pests, caterpillars are essential to the butterfly life cycle and generally consume only parts of a plant.“Even plants that we consider weeds, or those that may not look attractive, can be important host plants for butterflies,” he said.The initiative also seeks to demonstrate that with limited open space, plants in pots can make habitat gardens possible.WWF-India plans to expand the initiative’s impact to more schools, positioning the habitat gardens as living classrooms where children can learn that conservation begins with even the smallest green space.“Such green spaces can support urban wildlife such as squirrels, mongooses and palm civets, helping create small biodiversity pockets within built-up areas,” he said.Butterfly HavensHabitat garden schoolsSt. Aloysius High School, DivarAuxilium School, CaranzalemMae dos Pobres High School, NuvemGovt High School, Gaval Khol, CanconaPM Shri Govt High School, Keri, SattariParse High School, ParseButterfly host plant [weeds]Giant Milkweed ( Konkani: Rui)Cassia tora (Konkani: Taikilo)Baloon VineTridax Daisy
