Assessing Butterflies in Europe. Executive summary

1. The Assessing Butterflies in Europe (ABLE) project was an EU Parliamentary Pilot project with a duration of two years (beginning of December 2019 to the end of November 2020) and received €800,000 of funding via a service contract with Directorate General Environment. 2. The mandate and rationale from the EU Parliament was: “The project aims at developing a suite of EU Lepidoptera indicators which can help improve conservation measure and assess progress in implementing EU policies and legislation such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 and the EU Habitats Directive. Besides providing a highly relevant indicator for measuring progress in terms of managing and restoring Natura 2000 sites, it would also contribute to monitoring progress on Target 3 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, which aims to increase the contribution of agriculture and forestry to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity. In particular, the pilot should deliver a representative indicator to help monitor the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy on grassland biodiversity. It will also provide data to produce a climate change indicator, thereby contributing to the ongoing revision of climate change adaptation strategies. Indicators will also be possible for woodland, wetland and urban habitats.” 3. The ABLE project was delivered by a consortium of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Butterfly Conservation Europe, Butterfly Conservation UK, De Vlinderstichting and HelmholtzZentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH – UFZ. Considerable in-kind contributions were provided by Butterfly Conservation partners across Europe. 4. There is mounting evidence of widespread declines in the diversity and abundance of insects across the globe. The ABLE project is particularly timely in helping to develop capacity for monitoring of insects and assessing the status of butterflies in the EU. 5. There are 482 butterfly species in Europe (451 occurring within the EU27), breeding in a wide range of habitats. Butterflie