Butterfly Conservation
Butterfly
Conservation is an national charity based in the United Kingdom which works to
safeguard the future of our butterflies and moths by
The West Country branch was founded in 1981 by Graham Swift of Bath. Ten years later he relinquished leadership because of other commitments. It was revived by Nick Wynn of Wiltshire who formed a committee. Initially it catered for all of South West England but one by one the counties broke away becoming highly successful branches in their own right until 1995 when it was just Somerset and Bristol but elected to keep the name West Country branch. Since then it has had 4 futher chairmen and the present one, Dudley Cheesman has risen to become national chairman as well It has 5 reserves, three of them fully owned. (Haddon Moor, Little Breach, Mount Fancy, Thurlbear Quarrylands and Stoke Camp). It was 1995 when the largest owned reserve was purchased, being Stoke Camp near Cheddar. This 26 acre limestone hill fort was partly paid for by two members in memory of lost relatives No less than 40 sites are recorded weekly during the summer, mostly by members and the branch publishes the tabulated results. In 2005 the branch published the first book on Somerset butterflies (a butterfly walks handbook) since 1955. The public are encouraged to attend field events and the current membership is nearly 400
A brief history
The alarming decline of many butterflies after the Second
World War led a small group of dedicated naturalists in 1968, headed by Sir
Peter Scott, to form the British Butterfly Conservation Society.
The aim of
the new Society was to try to halt the decline of these lovely insects and at
the same time help safeguard the environment itself. Specifically they aimed to
conserve both butterflies and moths, as well as the habitats on which they
depend.
Since that
time Butterfly Conservation, as it later became known, has grown steadily to
become the largest insect conservation organisation in Europe and possibly even
the world. We now have over 30 regional branches covering the whole of the UK
which carry out the vital local conservation tasks. The branches are backed by
a central organisation responsible for co-ordination, fund-raising, research
and national policy matters. We have offices in England, Scotland and Wales
from which staff operate to help stimulate and guide local and national action.
We have
achieved a lot in a short space of time, but there is still much left to do as
the pressures on our countryside are as great as ever, and we have inherited a
long legacy of destruction that will take many decades to remedy.
The Somerset & Bristol Branch of
Butterfly Conservation
Our branch covers the whole of historic county of Somerset
and Bristol.
We manage three nature reserves at Haddon Moor, Stoke Camp
and Thurlbear Quarrylands
What we do
Our activities all centre on the need to conserve wild butterflies and moths and their habitats by: