Driveway installations are damaging butterfly population

Butterfly numbers are falling in towns and cities, as home owners turn their front gardens into driveways.

Applications to pave over front gardens for parking have soared by almost 50 per cent in two years, devastating the flowers and bushes that butterflies rely on for survival.

Charity Butterfly Conservation says the loss of gardens, along with pollution and development, has caused 25 butterfly species to decline faster in urban areas than the countryside.

Research published by Direct Line last month showed successful applications for lowered kerbs to create driveways have risen by 49 per cent between 2013 and 2015, with 29,587 applications approved in 2015.

Professor Tom Brereton, head of monitoring at the Butterfly Conservation charity, said: ‘The problem of people paving over their gardens for driveways has doubled in the last 20 years, because of the lack of parking spaces in urban areas.
‘In some towns and cities large gardens are being sold off for housing and in back gardens we are seeing fewer plants and more decking, extensions and barbecue areas. People are using more pesticides too, all of which are bad for butterflies.’

Read more: Daily Mail

Comments

[Daniel Lee]

It is painful to read this :( But butterflies are not the only ones who're in danger, here is a report about other animals who are close to disappearing http://planetaryproject.com/global_problems/eco/static/catastrophic-reduction-of-biodiversity/ . All this is our human's fault.

[Kira]

Poor butterflies :(

[Martin Buuri Kaburia]

Let's be thoughtful of them