THE last years of the 20th Century saw a renaissance in interest in butterflies, both at the popular level of the general public and NGO's (non-governmental bodies) such as the British Butterfly Conservation Society and the Wildlife Trust Partnerships that own and maintain the majority of local nature reserves through a network of County Naturalists Trusts; and at local and national government level, including the government's own environmental body English Nature, formerly the Nature Conservancy Council, set up many years ago to advise governments on the best way in which to protect the environment - something they have singularly failed to achieve - until recently.

Butterflies are among the best indicators of the health of the countryside. For the most part, they fly during the day and, apart form one or two species, are easily seen. They are also extremely popular.

Few people actively dislike butterflies. Nevertheless, of the 60 or so species that occur in the British Isles, half are considered to be endangered or rare and even the numbers of the most common species are very much less than they were 50 years ago.

Fortunately, alarm bells began to ring and alerted those that dwell in the comparatively butterfly-free confines of the Palace of Westminster to the plight of British butterflies and an Initiative is being sponsored by West Hertfordshire MP Tony McWalter (in conjunction with the NGO's mentioned above) to examine this problem and look at ways in which to reverse the trend of habitat loss.

This Initiative, hosted by the Minister of the Environment and past Berkhamsted School pupil Michael Meacher, was launched at the House of Commons on 26th June and, having a long-term and continuing interest in the conservation of butterfly species and habitats, I was invited along.

To my mind,conservation should be driven as much by emotion as science but, so often, it tends to become the province of specialists rather than enthusiasts. And the result is sometimes less than the intention.

My late friend and world-renowned butterfly artist, Gordon Beningfield, was just such an enthusiast and, incidentally, an excellent field entomologist with a love of butterflies and their surroundings.

You have only to look at one of his meticulously painted pictures to see he not only possessed the skill to depict these insects (dubbed, rather appropriately, I feel, the bright wings of summer) he was enthralled by the way they moved and the small and beautiful landscapes in which they lived.

Gordon was a prime mover in the conservation movement as president of British Butterfly Conservation. And. on his death. two years ago this post passed to Sir David Attenborough - a man with a deep-rooted natural enthusiasm for the everyday wildlife of this country as well as the wonders of the world.

The Initiative aims to reverse the trend of a declining butterfly population - and it comes not a moment too soon.

One of the failings of the conservation movement and one of the reasons for its poor record in conservation of butterflies and other wildlife species can be found in a lack of coordination of environmental and habitat organisations.

Members of the general public who love the countryside make up one of the largest bodies of opinion in the country - conservative (with a small c) estimates of country lovers, most of whom live in towns and cities, is anything from 5 million to 6 million - far more than the membership of all the political parties put together.

However, the Conservation Movement lacks overall direction. It is composed of disparate and fragmented organisations and well-meaning individuals, many with excellent skills and abundant enthusiasm.

The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) alone has a million members, many of whom rarely, if ever visit, a nature reserve but are happy to pay their subscriptions and enjoy the birds and the wildlife in their home surroundings.

People like these are the real conservation movement. Without their financial support there would be few nature reserves for birds, or for any other creatures for that matter.

Conversely, if the members of the RSPB and all the other nature and environment, conservation and protection organisations took it upon themselves to visit Britain's protected places - all on the same day - the environmental value of virtually every site would be lost through sheer public pressure, not to mention the traffic jams and resulting pollution.

Yet, for all its tremendous weight in economic and political terms and its enormous human resource, conservation has yet to score that many positive victories over the forces that seek to destroy and despoil.

However, I am somewhat more confident in the future as this new century gets under way, if only because there is a growing awareness among consumers of their spending power. A realisation there is a new way in which to persuade and influence manufacturers of a whole range of goods and services from motor cars to supermarkets, farmers and growers of horticulture, and all the chemical and service industries that accompany modern life and for which we are willing to pay a fair price for safe food and clean air and water.

This, of course, is Utopia. It will never be achievable because of the human skill of turning most events to our own advantage - even though that advantage may not benefit the world we live in. But it's a nice thought, especially when the butterflies that thrive in our region are bursting from the pupa into the July sunshine.

One of the most attractive local butterflies is the Marbled White butterfly, a member of the widespread family of brown butterflies - an interesting contradiction in names. The majority of members of this family are indeed brown, or shades of brown, but the Marbled White butterfly enjoys a pleasing combination of pale cream or white wings interlaced with veins and bands of dark brown or black.

You'll find them on areas of rough grassland, particularly where the chalk is close to the surface, such as the Downs and Chiltern escarpment between Tring and Dunstable, and they occur along the route of the newly built A41 bypass, a questionable advantage of a new road that otherwise damaged a great deal of wildlife-rich countryside.

Rough grassland is also a magnet for other members of the Brown butterfly clan, including the Meadow Brown and Ringlet butterflies. Edwardian literature speaks of clouds of brown butterflies rising in front of flocks of grazing sheep.

Another butterfly, once common, but now rare due to changes in agriculture, is the Common Blue. Among the most beautiful of all the butterflies, the males are a wonderful sky blue colour with white-fringed wings and a pale grey spotted and ringed underside. The females are a dull metallic brown with a sprinkling of blue scales here and there on the upper surface of the wing.

Occasionally females emerge with blue wings edged in brown and red - making this one of the most attractive examples of what entomologists call aberrations.

Rather an unimaginative term for a variation on a natural theme.

It will be a few weeks yet before the main garden butterflies appear in any numbers, but indications are that the wet warm weather of spring and early summer has produced a bonanza of food plants for the nettle-feeding species like Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell

butterflies.

We shall have to wait and see if this prediction is borne

out by the reality of nature's exuberant expression of beauty.