The Gator Nation is everywhere — maybe even in Angangueo, Mexico.
Gainesville may soon pair with the Central Mexican city to become the first international Butterfly City connection.
The relationship would include correspondence between the cities to exchange cultural elements and relate through a common interest in butterflies.
“We envision the project as ... a way to link elementary schools in the two countries through a pen-pal program,” said Peter Johnson, one of the founders of the Butterfly Education Project. “I haven’t met many people who are anti-butterfly. They seem to be a common ground for people of all political and social views.”
A Butterfly City is one that protects, promotes and preserves butterflies and other urban wildlife, according to the Butterfly Education Project website.
Gainesville became the nation’s first Butterfly City in 2009.
Johnson and fellow founder, Gabe Hillel, both butterfly enthusiasts, first started the project after working with students at the Caring and Sharing Learning School in Gainesville, where they found that butterflies were an educational tool.
“It changed their perspective on what was interesting in their world,” Johnson said. “It increased their awareness of what was around them.”
The two men said the next step is for city hall to send a letter to Angangueo to establish an official relationship between the two cities.
“It’s not a question of if — it’s a question of when and how,” Hillel said.
A blue Morpho butterfly rests on an information folder inside the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Butterfly Rainforest exhibit during a release Monday.
