A very weird project‽ (1 Viewer)

[Mono]

Not sure this belongs in the Conservation forum but don't know where else to put it.

A proposed project to build a butterfly reserve, by excluding butterfly predators! They are looking to raise £400k!

The Project - Butterflies Forever

www.butterflies-forever.org.uk

 

[dantheman]

Are they going to ban weather too?

 

[Swindon Addick]

If they're going to keep the area free from browsing animals and from humans, they should end up with a nice bit of woodland in 10-20 years. Probably with more sycamore than they'd like, but unmanaged woodland is rare enough in the UK that I reckon we can live with that.

However if they're aiming to boost the butterfly population rather than to create dead wood for interesting beetle species, there are one or two minor points about how ecology works that they might like to get some advice on before they spend their money...

 

[dantheman]

If they're going to keep the area free from browsing animals and from humans, they should end up with a nice bit of woodland in 10-20 years. Probably with more sycamore than they'd like, but unmanaged woodland is rare enough in the UK that I reckon we can live with that.

However if they're aiming to boost the butterfly population rather than to create dead wood for interesting beetle species, there are one or two minor points about how ecology works that they might like to get some advice on before they spend their money...

Or other people's money.

I wonder if they've interacted with the local butterfly conservation branch, or if this is a reaction to local events.

 

[jogresh]

Wow having checked out the website it just seems really really dumb, or a scam. I'm gobsmacked.

 

[MJB]

Nice use of the Interrobang in the title...!
MJB

 

[Farnboro John]

What absolute codswallop.

John

 

[Jos Stratford]

Give me that much money and I can buy a hundred of hectares of flower rich butterfly habitat here with far greater diversity of species than they will ever get, and I will have lots of change left over - send me the money

 

[Swindon Addick]

I can't decide if it's a scheme to make money by drawing salaries from the project or if it's a cunning plan to create a nature reserve specifically for parasitoid wasps.

 

[Farnboro John]

The real question ought to be how do we spoke their lunatic wheel sufficiently to prevent diversion of individuals' possible conservation donations to them instead of more deserving conservation projects (i.e. all other conservation projects)?

John

 

[Paul Chapman]

Apparently well meaning but ill-informed:-

About us - Butterflies Forever

www.butterflies-forever.org.uk

It really needs to be the case that the "butterfly craziness" ends. A disproportionate amount of attention to a limited group of lepidoptera that has no priceless ecological niche or role that receives disproportionate attention.

Presumably this stems from Victorian collecting habits and is ingrained permanently.

But Butterfly Conservation should be renamed Butterfly & Moth Conservation or better Moth Conservation and people should consider the Butterfly families as simply what they are - a grouping of (micro) moth families.

You then stand some chance of a more holistic approach. The fact that they use Monarch within their publicity material sums it up really. The sooner someone with a better understanding sits down and educates them the better.

Jos's point is where I end up on most of these schemes. If you just used the money to buy as much land as possible and stopped poisoning it or chopping it down, even with no management and when it scrubbed/wooded up, it would still be more ecologically valuable than what they propose. That is what we need. More land that we do not screw up for wildlife. Even no management is better than land that is poisoned and where vegetation is routinely destroyed without really understanding the effect.

They are probably also Trustees of their local Wildlife Trusts.....

All the best

Paul

 

[Phil Andrews]

No sign of them on the Charity Commission website 🤔

 

[Paul Chapman]

No sign of them on the Charity Commission website 🤔

Hmmm. That is interesting. I'll pass to a friend who used to work at the Charity Commission for his thoughts....

All the best

Paul

 

[Owene]

Apparently well meaning but ill-informed:-

About us - Butterflies Forever

www.butterflies-forever.org.uk

It really needs to be the case that the "butterfly craziness" ends. A disproportionate amount of attention to a limited group of lepidoptera that has no priceless ecological niche or role that receives disproportionate attention.

And even within that limited group. I was out with a university ecologist recently watching black hairstreaks. In several hours in a managed reserve we saw more than we saw other species combined when there should have been dozens of 5 or 6 other species. He was of the opinion that the specialist 'threatened' species were the only ones doing well this year. He runs butterfly trips but told me the other day he had seen more purple emperors than small tortoiseshell this year.

We are micromanaging headline species while losing everything else

 

[Paul Chapman]

And even within that limited group. I was out with a university ecologist recently watching black hairstreaks. In several hours in a managed reserve we saw more than we saw other species combined when there should have been dozens of 5 or 6 other species. He was of the opinion that the specialist 'threatened' species were the only ones doing well this year. He runs butterfly trips but told me the other day he had seen more purple emperors than small tortoiseshell this year.

We are micromanaging headline species while losing everything else

Absolutely this. It will also be in ignorance of whatever species are there, it may be in ignorance of part of the management that is needed for the specialist species and it will be in ignorance of the effect of the management regime on other species.

I am trying to get that understood but getting a significant degree of disengagement even at sites where my lepidoptera lists are 500+ species!!!!!

All the best

Paul

 

[Mono]

If they do have have £400k to spare...

Check out this Land for sale on Rightmove

Land for sale in Bramber Brooks, West Sussex, BN44 for £425,000. Marketed by Graves Son and Pilcher, East Sussex

www.rightmove.co.uk

 

[dantheman]

If they do have £400k to spare...

[URL='https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136557797'[/URL]

They'll need 18 million if they want to buy that one ...

 

[Paul Chapman]

An update in this regard. They are not a Charity despite effectively claiming to be so and the (deliberately?) misleading reference to Companies House. Registering with charitable objects does not cut it.

Anyone who saw the piece on Newsnight a couple of days ago will have seen reference to an "Institute" that audits governance in NHS Trusts that plays similarly fast & loose by registering in Ireland to use that misleading name.

I have attached a quick snapshot of this organisation's website and also the correct definition of charity from the relevant Government website. Of course, we are seeing a deterioration in standards across the board in recent times and a proliferation of opportunities for those behaving poorly.

So not only is this environmentally crazy, it is both legally and morally flawed....

(I spent 25 years in the legal profession - which has had its own deterioration - and was previously in and around financial services for a few years before that. For most of my specialism, I was involved in acting for victims who in various guises had parted with monies to organisations who simply did not recognise where their behaviour was falling short at best or occasionally were downright crooks.)

All the best

Paul

 

[Julian Thomas]

The company's Memorandum and Articles of Association look to be a bit of a cut-and-paste job from (a version of) the Charity Commission's model Mem and Arts for a charitable company, including multiple references to the Commission and even to the company's entry on the Central Register of Charities (which, like Phil, I cannot find, even on a keyword search). There have now been 2 new Charities Acts since I left the Commission 12 years ago, but the basics appear to remain the same.

To be a charitable company, the company must be registered with both Companies House and the Charity Commission. There is a structure (a Charitable Incorporated Organisation or CIO) that allows all the benefits of limited liability without having to be registered at Companies House, but it has to be registered with the CC. The wording 'registered as a charity at companies house' (the last three words have been added since an email exchange I had with the founder yesterday) are a legal nonsense.

I got a bit cynical while working for the CC, but even without the concerns about plans to exclude birds and other predators, as it stands personally I wouldn't touch this organisation with a bargepole. I intend to flag it up with the CC for them to take whatever regulatory action they see fit.

 

[Mono]

If your income is less than £5000 you don't need to registered with the Charity Commission, so it is possible to be a Charity and not registered with the CC.

There are also things called Community Interest Companies, limited companies that are nonprofit making and have goodly goals. But all the wording around CICs make it clear they are not capital C Charities.

It is unclear what Butterflies Forever is, but I wouldn't imagine they have an income over £50 let alone £5000!