Moths are sensitive indicators of the health of the natural environment and a vital part of the food chain.

Of the 900 macro-moths that occur in Britain and Ireland, many appear to have undergone drastic declines
in both abundance and range within the last 50 years. Unfortunately an accurate assessment of their conservation status is impossible as there is no comprehensive national dataset. A tremendous amount
of moth recording takes place across Britain and Ireland, probably more so than any other European country. Whilst the current network of county moth recorders do a very valuable job in collecting records at the county level, there is no integrated system that harnesses all this information for a common purpose.

Butterfly Conservation is leading a large partnership of organisations and funders in an initial four-year
project to establish and run a National Moth Recording Scheme. The overall aim of the National Moth Recording Scheme is to stimulate and encourage moth recording throughout the UK and to establish an ongoing recording scheme for the 900+ species of macro-moths. The project is just getting under way and
a web site will be set up shortly to provide more information about the project and events being organised
in 2008.