Dan Danahar

Dr Dan Danahar is a biodiversity educationalist, who has led a number of local initiatives within the city of Brighton & Hove, including persuading the public to count butterflies, which in turn inspired the national charity Butterfly Conservation to develop the Big Butterfly Count.

He has also introduced Butterfly Havens as a habitat restoration approach for chalk grassland butterflies, giving the public access to nature on their doorsteps. Dan is Executive Trustee of the charitable company Big Nature – www.bignature.co.uk, which aims to revitalise the relationship between people and their local wildlife by creating natural habitats within the UNESCO designated Brighton & Lewes Downs Biosphere region (The Living Coast).

In 2020 he set up the friends of the Liz Williams Butterfly Haven, a local community group in Brighton and Hove whose aim it is to manage the Liz Williams Butterfly Haven to enhance the teaching and learning opportunities for the staff and students of Dorothy Stringer School and to make a significant new contribution to local nature conservation.

Since 2014 he has worked to set up Corfu Butterfly Conservation, a UK registered Community Interest Company (No.13813164) which is a non-profit making organisation working in partnership with both governmental and non-governmental partners in Greece, the United Kingdom and Europe. www.corfubutterflyconservation.org. To date the organisation has six core aims:

1. To encourage the continued growth of a responsible community of Corfu butterfly enthusiasts.
2. To survey the butterflies of Corfu and determine the number of species present on the island, their distribution, as well as their flight periods.
3. To find out if the butterfly communities of Corfu could be used as indicators of good habitat quality and if so help with the conservation of other Corfiot wildlife.
4. To identify potential losses of species and habitats and inform the Greek authorities about which needs protecting.
5. To publish the butterfly survey results and the conclusions drawn from this data in the first comprehensive Corfu Butterfly Atlas.
6. To encourage eco-tourism outside the main tourist season bringing extra revenue to Corfu.

Dan first started to work with us as a guide in 2018 when he co-led a successful tour to north Greece for spring butterflies, followed by a tour of the butterflies of Southern Greece in 2019. His next project with us will be this exciting new holiday to Corfu for butterflies and other wildlife.