Butterfly Conservation is committed to sharing data to benefit nature conservation, public understanding and ecological research.
After consultation with the butterfly and moth recording community Butterfly Conservation has recently enabled public access to substantial data holdings via the NBN Gateway.
Some 3.3 million butterfly records spanning three centuries (1690-1999) from the Butterflies for the New Millennium (BNM) project, the national recording scheme for butterflies, run in association with the Biological Records Centre (BRC) are now publicly available. In addition to this, all 400,000 butterfly records from Scotland, covering the period 1811-2013 are publicly accessible at 1km resolution. Almost six million macro-moth records (apart from records of nine highly threatened species) from the National Moth Recording Scheme (NMRS) for the period 1700-1999 have also been made available for view and download.
Enhanced public access to data held in Butterfly Conservation’s recording schemes is an ongoing process and further developments are likely in the future. Discussions with our recorders show that many would prefer an even more open approach. However, opinions vary greatly and compromise is necessary to maintain the integrity and success of our schemes into the future.
We are extremely grateful to our dedicated recorders and networks of County Moth and Butterfly Recorders for their continued support of our recording schemes.
