NEWSLETTER Issue 14 November 2013 CONTENTS Page Chairman’s Introduction 2-3 Update on EIG/Proserpine Conference 4-7 Contact Details 8 Notices 9 2014 EIG Projects & Events 10 2013 EIG Projects 11-14 EIG In Romania 15-18 Supporting Butterfly Monitoring and Conservation in Romania 19-21 Visit to Montes Universales, Spain 22-30 Visit to Sardinia 31-34 Visit to La Palma 35-36 Butterfly Atlas for the Midi Pyrenees 37-40 News 40 New Books 40-41 Requests for Assistance 41-42 1 Editorial EIG has always tried to work with local partners in European countries for mutual benefit. These are usually the Butterfly Conservation Europe (BCE) partner organisations and part of our role is to encourage volunteers to submit records, do surveys and take an interest in the butterflies of other European countries. In Holland, with its own strong organisation (de Vlinderstichting) and army of volunteers, EIG can add little to the knowledge about butterflies. Elsewhere it is very different and very variable. Often external interest can have a positive role as a catalyst. Our collaboration with Proserpine in France to put on a butterfly conference in Digne les Bains was our most ambitious project yet and was very successful. It was attended by over 100 people and went very well. It was partly intended as a catalyst for the conservation of butterflies in France. My guess is that the Danube Clouded Yellow (Colias mymidone) could become extinct in the EU27 countries fairly soon. On the Red List, it is endangered in Europe and critical in the European Union. It has already been lost from several countries such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Germany. It appears to require large areas of suitable habitat to do well. Although its foodplant Chaemicytisus, a form of broom, is far from scarce, it requires young shoots for egg laying and either grazing or a patchwork of irregular mowing. The species hangs on in Romania and Poland and is near extinction in Slovakia. The species is one of a few with an EU action plan for its conservation (Marhoul, P. and Dolek, M. 2010) and its requirements are actually quite well known. They are the sort of thing that could be delivered by an intelligent targeted Agri-environment scheme and not one that insists that all hay meadows are cut twice a year. It also occurs further east outside the European Union in Belarus and the Ukraine but there is little reliable recent information. Several EIG trips have found Colias myrmidone in Romania. One of the sites visited in 2013 had been recently damaged despite being in public ownership. As I see it, the problem is that there is no proper capacity to do something about it in Romania and though EIG have helped Paul Kirkland and Jacqueline Loos train people on doing transects in Romania (See Pages 19- 21 ) there is a long way to go. The two BCE partners do what they can but they have other commitments. Romania is a big country with lots of butterflies, some of which are very scarce. The situation was very similar for some of the Scarce Large Blues Phengaris telejus and P. nausithous in Hungary but the determination and energy of our old friend Szabolics Safian (Safi) has made a huge difference. EIG has played a role here over a number of years. Mike Williams will lead an EIG trip there next summer. We need a similar sort of effort in Romania. The recent CAP changes suggest that more of the enormous budget of the Common Agricultural Policy is being moved from Pillar I (direct support) to Pillar II that can be used to fund Agri-environment Schemes. Whether any of it can be used to fund an Agri-environment Scheme that will prevent C. myrmidone becoming extinct is more doubtful. I have spent quite a lot of the last 20 years trying to protect the Pearl-bordered Fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne) in my part of the world - mid Wales and, more recently, Shropshire. The situation is fairly stable and well monitored and it seems reasonably easy to get funds for management work. On a European scale, Pearl-bordered Fritillary is ubiquitous and often common. The contrast between northern Europe which has already lost much of its limited butterfly diversity and Southern and Eastern Europe which were richer to start with but where recent changes have been alarming is considerable. Belgium has lost 17 species. Its butterfly fauna is well known and well monitored and most of its richer sites are now protected but still losing species. Greece has endemic butterflies that are threatened and, though it has a rich butterfly fauna of 230 species, conservation action to protect even rare endemic butterflies is extremely limited. Thanks to the work of Lazaros Pamperis, its butterfly fauna is well known but there is so little he can do on his own to reverse those declines. If they can very nearly quarry the only site in the 2 EU for Odd Spot Blue (Turanana taygetica), a red list endangered species, there is certainly scope for improvement. Even in France with a rich butterfly fauna and some of the best field naturalists I have met, there is not a conservation focussed national Butterfly NGO with paid staff. We had hoped that the Proserpine/EIG conference in Dignes les Bains might stimulate the formation of such an organisation but though it brought the leading butterfly experts together, often meeting for the first time, my suspicion would be that regional NGOs might be more successful. (See Pages 4- 6). It is up to the French. It was so encouraging to visit Spain and to hear about the BCE MAVA project that is working to protect four endemic threatened and little known butterfly species:- Nevada Blue (Polyommatus golgus), Andalusian Anomalous Blue (P. violetae), Zullich’s Blue (Agriades zullichi) and Spanish Greenish Black-tip (Euchloe bazae). EIG has played a role here too sending volunteers to help with the surveys (See pages 11-14). However a small amount of funding has brought together many Spanish butterfly enthusiasts so that there is now a real determination to look after these important Spanish species. The issues are familiar: overgrazing, abandonment, inappropriate development etc. The butterflies are often within National Parks and they all appeared to be doing a lot better than Colias myrmidone. Their distribution and ecology is now better known and there is now a critical mass of enthusiasm and expertise to ensure their survival. The survey work has shown that one species P. violetae is more widespread than previously known and new colonies have been found over a wide area including the Sierra Nevada where it had previously never been recorded. The threats are mainly inappropriate development and, in the long run, climate change. Though the EU LIFE funding, Natura 2000 and Agri-environment schemes are all very useful in protecting wildlife including butterflies what is desperately needed is something completely different. What is really required is a small amount of seed corn funding to bring together local enthusiasm and local, as well as international expertise, to create national butterfly organisations which are not just the odd dedicated individual trying to balance a career as well as an all-consuming hobby but small independent professional outfits in every European country with the resources and time to tackle government, to champion the cause of butterflies and make things happen. When I started to work as a butterfly consultant in Wales my local wildlife trust had just received an unexpected legacy of £1 million. Some of this they spent on paying me to do surveys for butterflies as I had just found a High Brown Fritillary (Argynnis adippe) colony sadly no longer there. The then Countryside Council for Wales also contributed. As it was now ‘work’, there was no difficulty winning the argument on the domestic front about whether I should be doing DIY or decorating or out looking for butterflies. Few of us have the luxury of sufficient income AND sufficient time to be able to work for butterflies at a stage in our lives when we can still run after them. If there was a BC Romania with a small office and a couple of full time people with telephones and cars and computers all paid for they could sort C. myrmidone . They could harness the enthusiasm of volunteers, including those from EIG, and provide the expertise and then find the funding to make it happen. Butterfly Conservation did it here in the UK though often protecting some of the most widespread and commonest butterflies in Europe. Simon Spencer Chairman EIG 3 EIG/Proserpine Conference in Dignes les Bains June 28-30 2013 Les papillons de jour de France: état des connaissances et perspectives de conservation Some of the speakers at the Conference This year EIG took on the slightly risky and rather ambitious project of running a Butterfly Conference in France. As it was in France, it had to be in French. I knew it would only work if we could get two people to sign up to it. The first was my old friend Tristan Lafranchis who had not spoken in France for more than 20 years despite having written the only decent French book on butterflies (Les papillons de jour de France, Belgique et Luxembourg et leur chenilles , Biotope 2000). The second person was Nicholas Maurel, also a good friend of Tristan’s, and who is the inspiration behind the Jardins de Papillons run by the Nicolas Maurel & Tristan Lafranchis 4 organisation Proserpine in Dignes les Bains.