WORK to restore a butterfly habitat in a Dartmoor valley has enabled a threatened species to flourish after decades of decline.

The combination of targeted management and restoration has allowed many species to increase in each of the 12 landscapes covered in a new groundbreaking report.

The report by Butterfly Conservation reveals that restoring and joining up habitat will prevent South West England's threatened butterflies and moths from becoming extinct in the future.

A landscape-scale approach has been shown to work by improving and connecting land for wildlife by the coordinated conservation management of numerous sites for a range of species across a large natural area.

Butterflies are the most threatened wildlife group; more than three-quarters of Britain's 57 resident species are declining and over 40% are listed as priorities for conservation. More than 80 moth species are also at risk.

For over a decade, Butterfly Conservation has adopted a landscape-scale approach to conserving these areas in order to manage existing habitats more effectively and link them with newly restored habitats.

This combination of targeted management and restoration has allowed many species to flourish.

Examples include the Marsh Fritillary, which in one Dartmoor valley has increased by more than 1000% in five years.

In the Fernworthy-Long valley Butterfly Conservation has been working in partnership with the National Park and Natural England through the Two Moors Threatened Butterfly Project to reverse the declines of rare Marsh Fritillary butterflies.

Since the project began in 2005, significant management has taken place in the Fernworthy-Long Lane network of wet grassland sites to improve the habitat quality and increase connectivity between sites, including scrub control, cutting of soft rush, and fencing to enable grazing to take place. Landowners have been encouraged to enter agri-environment agreements which support the cost of works, and management has also been undertaken with involvement from volunteer groups.

Monitoring of the butterfly has shown that the number of occupied habitat patches increased from six in 2005 to 18 in 2010.

Overall there was a significant increase of just over 1000% in the abundance of larval webs in the network over this period. Managing the habitat for the Marsh Fritillary has helped to maintain and restore habitat on a landscape scale for other declining lepidoptera, such as the Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk-moth and Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, as well as a range of other flora and fauna found in wet pastures.

Jenny Plackett, Two Moors Project Officer, said: 'I am delighted with the response of the Marsh Fritillary to all the management work that has been carried out in this area, and really grateful to the farmers and landowners who have helped to make it happen.

This project, and all the others highlighted in Butterfly Conservation's report, shows that improving habitat condition over a network of sites across a landscape is very effective in reversing declines in our rare species'.

The report lends weight to the recent Government paper by ecologist Professor Sir John Lawton Making Space for Nature which states that we must make habitats far bigger, better managed and more connected if species are to survive in the future.

Sir John said: 'The Butterfly Conservation report shows what can be achieved through a highly focused species-led approach.

'Very simply 'more, bigger, better and joined' works, and needs to be rolled out far more widely. Recreating, restoring and joining up habitats benefits not just butterflies and moths, but a host of other creatures with which they share their habitat.'