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These statistics on butterflies in England contribute to a suite of indicators due to be updated in November this year - the Biodiversity 2020 indicators for England; earlier data availability allows their release ahead of that publication. Two measures of annual butterfly population abundance are presented: the first for butterflies of the wider countryside on farmland; the second for butterflies of the wider countryside in woodland. The release also includes an additional England ‘all-species’ index that does not form part of the formal assessment. All 3 measures are multi-species indices compiled by Butterfly Conservation (BC) and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) from data collated through the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) and the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS). The indicators use data from butterfly transect sites on farmland and in woodland from the UKBMS and additional randomly selected farmland and woodland plots from the WCBS. Further details of the methods used to compile the indicators and assess change can be found on the UKBMS website. More information about farmland and woodland indicators is available on the England biodiversity indicators homepage.

Defra statistics: environment

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Published 20 October 2015
Last updated 2 February 2024 + show all updates

2 February 2024
Butterflies Development Plan added.
24 October 2023
Annual update.
4 January 2023
Titles of two attachments changed.
15 December 2022
Removed redundant notes from the ‘Trends in populations of selected butterfly species, England, 1990 to 2021’ dataset.
13 October 2022
Annual update.
16 September 2021
New publication including data up to 2020. In addition edits made to the wording on the homepage and document titles of the attachments.
29 September 2020
Unaccessible attachment removed.
21 September 2020
Accessible pdf added as an additional attachment.
17 September 2020
Annual update.
11 July 2019
2018 data published
21 June 2018
Updated indicators published 1990 to 2017
29 June 2017
Trends up to 2016 published
20 October 2015
First published.

Butterflies in England: species of the wider countryside on farmland and in woodland

Applies to England

Documents