AT ASOLA BHATTI WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, on Delhi’s southern fringe, a patch of wasteland measuring a little over two acres lies enclosed by barbed wire. I visited it in late June, and was shown around by Sohail Madan, a naturalist in his early thirties. Madan, round-faced and balding, runs the Conservation Education Centre, a small non-profit institute based at the sanctuary. On a commission from the Delhi government, he is building a butterfly park here.
The area was overrun with vilayati kikar, an invasive and aggressive tree popularly believed to have been introduced by the British. In his low voice, Madan indicated where workers had uprooted some kikar, where he planned to have a pond, and where he’d marked out a 900-metre elevated footpath for visitors. The plan, he said, is to put in a range of native trees suited to the dry, rocky soil. The trouble is that, with urbanisation rampant and kikar stifling local plants, many trees native to Delhi are increasingly hard to find in the city.
A few days earlier, I had joined Madan and three of his young staff on a road trip to Jodhpur. At the Arid Forest Research Institute, on the city’s outskirts, a senior scientist gave us a long tour of the facility’s nursery and arboretum. Madan produced a wish list of 22 trees and shrubs, and within a quarter of an hour he was beaming. He found saplings of dhau and roheda, and of palash, also known as Flame of the Forest after its bright orange blossoms. He also discovered gugal, a shrub he hadn’t thought of, and added it to his plans. But the prize was peelu, a small tree also known as meswak, whose twigs are famous as natural toothbrushes and which is beloved of butterflies. Trees of Delhi, a field guide by the fimmaker turned environmentalist Pradip Krishen—whom Madan counts as a mentor—describes peelu as a “quintessential desert tree … becoming rare in Delhi and confined to relict patches of original forest that have somehow escaped development.”
Before leaving Jodhpur, we returned to pick up 30 or so saplings of various species, destined for a trial plantation at the butterfly park site to check if they can survive there. Madan and his team rearranged their bags in the rear of a small blue van, then watched as gardeners arrayed the saplings in three neat rows. The saplings were sprayed with water, and their bases wrapped in gunnysack to hold extra moisture. Mission accomplished, we started on the 14-hour drive back to Delhi.
For Madan, the butterfly park is part of a larger venture: to repatriate Delhi’s native vegetation. The park was conceived by Delhi I Love You, or DILY, an initiative to promote pride in the city and a healthier future for it, inspired by similar efforts in major cities across the world. DILY, working with Madan, Krishen, and city authorities, is building a seed bank for Delhi, and a nursery of native plants adjacent to the butterfly park. The aim, Madan told me, is to share seeds and saplings with anyone who wants them, and to counter prejudices against native species. In a Youtube video for DILY, Krishen describes how some popular preferences, such as planting alien, evergreen trees on avenues, go “against the grain of the natural ecology of trees in Delhi.” Madan described how many gardens are “controlled by the maali, gardener, who might not approve of certain trees because of how they look, leading to some trees getting completely sidelined.” For instance, aak, a wild tree also favoured by butterflies and once common in the area, is now in decline.
Madan told me part of the challenge will be to teach Delhiites how best to plant and care for native flora, after learning more about them himself. At the AFRI nursery, he picked up tips from the staff on how to arrange the trees he was planting at the butterfly park. Also in Jodhpur, we visited the Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, a biodiversity reserve curated by Krishen about a decade ago, behind a historic fort that stands above the city. Here, Madan observed how his mentor had used indigenous plants to combat kikar on terrain similar to that at Asola Bhatti.
Butterfly parks aren’t popular among environmentalists, and have been largely unsuccessful in Delhi as conservation projects. But Madan was convinced that his approach—building a dense native habitat rather than a manicured garden as is usual—is at least a step forward, and can galvanise future environmentalists. “Maybe tomorrow, somebody will come up with a great conservation idea,” he said, and the spark could be “the butterfly park I built.”