Rob Small's Masters Thesis: Uptake and the success of insect ...

Borch was employed as an agricultural officer in the Sepik and it was here that he trained
three or four locals in butterfly ranching and collecting. Peter Clark the co-founder of IFTA
was also based in the Sepik and also had an amateur interest in entomology. It was from
Borch that he gained knowledge in the process of ranching butterflies. Clark began to assist
people in the Sepik region in supply of overseas postal orders of insects. Simultaneously
Angus Hutton, a tea plantation manager in Morobe Province, was assisting locals in a
similar business of trade with overseas collectors. Hutton and Clark were assisting Papua
New Guinean collectors and ranchers as ‘major problems with payment, variety of species
and quality quickly became apparent’ (Mercer & Clark, 1989).
Development of the Insect Farming and Trading Agency
In 1974 the Australian Administration, following requests from Hutton and Clark,
consolidated the ranching and collecting of insects under the Insect Farming and
Conservation Project which became a part of the Division of Wildlife. This was bolstered
by legislation introduced at the time restricting the trade to PNG citizens (Hutton, 1985).
This move by the administration essentially created a government-controlled monopoly on
the butterfly trade. The Department of Wildlife commissioned a report which
recommended the creation of a sustainable development project to promote the
conservation of wild butterflies while providing villagers with an opportunity to participate
in the cash economy (Pyle & Hughes, 1978). Following this report the Insect Farming and
Trading Agency was formed.
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