Our Team

Sh. Peter Smetacek, renowned as the "Butterfly Man of India," an authority on Indian butterfiles and moths, has published sixty papers on them and has described a dozen new to science. He pioneered the use of lepidoptera as indicators of climate change with a paper published in 1994. He is the founder of the Butterfly Research Centre in Bhimtal in Nainital, Uttarakhand, and is known as the butterfly man of India. The lepidopterist has dedicated his life to conservation of butterflies and moths, amassing one of the largest private collections of them in India. His passion for butterflies goes back to his childhood, and he has been studying them for as long as he remembers. His father, Fred Smetacek, a central European immigrant, had established an insect collection at their home in 1946, long before Peter was born. After World War II, the family moved to the hills of Uttarakhand, eventually relocating to Jones Estate in Bhimtal in 1951. It was here that Smetacek’s fascination with butterflies found wings. Surrounded by international butterfly experts who trooped into their house to meet his father, young Smetacek absorbed the knowledge like a sponge. His colonial era abode, which is over 150 years old, serves as a sanctuary and laboratory. It is enveloped by a dense forest, rich in biodiversity, hosting 243 species of butterflies and more than 800 species of moths. “This is what forests all over India should look like. Forest should grow naturally, not the planted ones,” said Smetacek, advocating natural forest growth and emphasising its significance in bolstering biodiversity and water security.