Giving Compass' Take:

• Native communities in Kenya and Tanzania are capitalizing on butterfly farming as a means to make a living instead of the ecologically damaging and illegal logging trade. 

• How can other indigenous tribes in Africa protect their forests? Can coalitions form to help save African forests from logging? 

• Here's how countries are banning together to save the central African rainforest. 

If 51-year-old Hillary Thoya were to choose a lucky number, it would surely be 5,000. That's the amount, in Kenyan shillings, the logger and carpenter turned butterfly farmer paid to secure his freedom a decade ago. And it was the same amount that assured him his newfound venture could actually sustain his family at a time when he was considering giving up.

One afternoon in 2008, Thoya was arrested by Kenya Forest Service officers inside Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve in Kenya's Kilifi county, accused of illegally felling trees. Thoya wasn't too concerned; he knew a small bribe would quickly secure his release and he could get back to the job of completing construction of a sunbed for a customer.

However, luck wasn't on Thoya's side. Earlier that month new forest officers had been dispatched to the region precisely to curb instances of bribery.

Read the full article about butterfly farming in Africa by Janet Njung at Pacific Standard