Monitoring butterflies in the Netherlands and Flanders: the first results

Butterfly monitoring started in the Netherlands in 1990 and in Flanders in 1991. During the last few years butterflies have been counted at nearly 300 sites. This high number of transects makes it possible to calculate not only national, but also regional and habitat-indices for many species. Special attention is paid to Red list species in the Netherlands. In the near future the number of sites per species on this list is to be increased to at least 20. This can be achieved by a ‘Red list monitoring scheme’, in which monitoring is restricted to the flight period of the species.