Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust (usually referred to simply as Buglife) is a British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 nature conservation charity

Charitable organization

A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...

 based in Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Its aim is to prevent invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

 extinctions and to maintain sustainable populations of invertebrates in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

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. Buglife is the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, they are committed to saving Britain's rarest little animals, everything from bees to beetles, and spiders to snails. Today bugs are under threat as never before, so help us to secure a diverse and wildlife-rich planet for future generations.

Activities undertaken by Buglife fall into the following areas:

• Undertaking and promoting study and research
• Promoting habitat management aimed at maintaining and enhancing invertebrate biodiversity
  Biodiversity
  Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
  
  
• Publicising invertebrates

History

The charity was established in 2002 and has a strong conservation track record, saving sites that are home to endangered species; promoting the conservation of invertebrates to the public and land managers; undertaking research and surveys essential to planning effective action; and influencing policy and legislation so as to benefit endangered species.

Recent Achievements

• Successfully lobbying to insert wording in the Clean Neighbourhoods Act 2005 that ensured that insects in the countryside would not be declared a public nuisance.
• Campaigning for the banning of the use of Cypermethrin as a sheep dip - sale was suspended in February 2006.
• Training over 500 people to identify bumblebees at workshops in Essex and London in 2007.
• Buglife’s legal action to protect the biodiversity on West Thurrock Marshes resulted in the client (Royal Mail) pulling out of the development in 2008 – although as this is written a planning threat still hangs over the 36 rare and endangered insects on the site.

Aim

To stop the extinction of invertebrate species and to achieve sustainable populations of invertebrates.

This will be achieved by:

• Undertaking practical conservation projects.
• Promoting the environmental importance of invertebrates and raising awareness about the challenges to their survival.
• Assisting the development of legislation and policy.
• Developing and disseminating knowledge about how to conserve invertebrates.
• Encouraging and supporting invertebrate conservation initiatives by other organisations in the UK, Europe and worldwide.