This half-day trip pairs Zanzibar’s only national park with the community butterfly project next door, and covers most of the island’s land wildlife in a single morning.
Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park comes first. The forest trails carry you into the territory of the endemic Zanzibar red colobus monkey, found nowhere else on earth. Sykes’ monkeys, bush babies, Ader’s duiker, butterflies and forest birds share the same trees, and your guide finds them and explains how the conservation programme works.
The Zanzibar Butterfly Centre sits beside the park entrance. It is a community project: local farmers rear butterfly pupae for the enclosure and for export, which gives villages an income from keeping the forest standing. Inside the netted garden dozens of native species fly around you, and the keepers show you chameleons, bush babies, elephant shrews and other small residents.
The combination works particularly well for families and for anyone with an interest in conservation, since both sites explain what protecting the forest actually pays for.