The EU Butterfly Indicator for Grassland species: 1990-2017. Technical report

The EU Grassland Butterfly Indicator is one of the indicators of the status of biodiversity in the European Union. It is an abundance indicator based on data recording the population trends of seventeen butterfly species in 16 (see below) EU countries. This report presents the seventh version of this indicator now covering 28 years. At the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya (Japan) the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011– 2020 was adopted. It proposed five goals and 20 “Aichi” biodiversity targets. In line with this plan a new EU biodiversity strategy was adopted by the European Commission in May 2011. This provided a framework for the EU to meet its own biodiversity objectives and its global commitments as a party to the CBD. The Headline Target is to halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, and restore them, in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss. Under Target 3A the EU is committed to increase the contribution of agriculture to biodiversity recovery. Europe now has one year left to intensify action to achieve this. The EU biodiversity strategy includes the development of a coherent framework for monitoring, assessing and reporting on progress in implementing actions. Such a framework is needed to link existing biodiversity data and knowledge systems with the strategy, to help assess achievement of the goals and to streamline EU and global monitoring, reporting and review obligations. Some of the EU biodiversity indicators provide specific measurements and trends on genetic, species and ecosystem/landscape diversity, but many have a more indirect link to biodiversity. Very few have been established specifically to assess biodiversity. The status indicators on species only cover birds, bats and butterflies, since these are the only taxa/species groups for which harmonized European monitoring data are available (EEA, 2012). For the EU Grass