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19/09/2011 11:37: Project to halt the decline of native butterfly receives major funding boost

Butterfly Conservation has received a £119,974 funding boost from SITA Trust for their project ‘Dukes on the Edge: Conserving the Duke of Burgundy on the South Downs’.

The Duke of Burgundy is one of the UK’s most threatened butterflies and has declined by 71% since the 1980s and is now know to occur on less than 120 sites, mainly in southern England. The South Downs are a core area for the butterfly and this project will carry out landscape scale habitat restoration on nine sites in West Sussex and East Hampshire.

The project will restore downland and woodland habitats through a programme of scrub control, coppicing and ride management. This will not only strengthen populations on some of its largest British sites, but also encourage colonisation several former sites.

Sam Ellis of Butterfly Conservation said ‘The Duke of Burgundy has undergone one of the most dramatic declines of any British butterfly during the last few decades. If we hope to restore the Duke to its former haunts in the future, it is imperative we stop the decline now in its remaining strongholds, such as the South Downs. This project will make a major contribution to that goal, by conserving it on some of the best sites in the country’.

Jools Granville of SITA Trust said ‘SITA Trust has been providing support for such vital biodiversity conservation for many years and we are delighted to be able to provide essential funding at such a crucial time. ’