However, they are a crucial part of our ecosystem and Alexandra Primary School has received funding from the Otago Regional Council to protect and promote native moths and butterflies.
School kaitiaki (gardener) Dani Dunn and kaiako (teacher) Debbie Steel applied to the council’s ECO fund for biodiverse host plants to encourage native moths and butterflies, important for native-forest pollination and as a food source for birds and lizards.
The council gave the project $2000 from its ECO fund.
Mrs Dunn began planting in the school grounds about three years ago. She now has two gardening groups, a food forest and a native forest trail under way.
Haehaeata Trust gave the school Olearia hectorii plants which they raised using funding for community plants.
The plant was rare and an important host for native moths and butterflies, Mrs Dunn said.
Its rarity meant the insects were also under threat.
Money from the council would be used for plants to build up the habitat for them, she said.
"We want to recreate how it was [historically]."
The school hoped to eventually propagate from a seed bank and cuttings so plants could be distributed and grown around the community, she said.
Ms Steel said the project integrated into the school’s focus on teaching the children responsibility for themselves, their community and their environment.
"We are all one big ecology and we need to look after the Earth."
Growing the plants and monitoring them and the insect life was a project-based inquiry the whole school would be engaged in, she said.
Already the children were coming up with ideas about the insects’ lives and habits and how to discover if they were right.
Ms Dunn hoped to get funding for informative signs about the importance of the insects and their habitats.
