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Action Plan. There was a short presentation by Dr Ken Adams, a member of Council, on
the Black Poplar survey and the needs for funds to help propagate and conserve this
remarkable native tree.
However this launch is not the end of it. Come the summer there will be a whole week of
local events in Essex Biodiversity Week from 3rd to 10th July. It will be a chance to
celebrate the special natural features and species of this county and try to win support
from as wide a section of the community as possible for their conservation. Look out for
events being organised in your area.
A week earlier Epping Forest's popular Forest Festival will be held and this will include
the theme of biodiversity. Essex Field Club will have a stall, promoting our involvement
in the Essex Biodiversity Plan, alongside many other wildlife and local history groups.
The event takes place on Sunday 27th June running between noon and 4pm. It is
designed as a fun day for families to celebrate the Forest's cultural and management
history. Events planned include heavy horse demonstrations, chainsaw work, saxon
villlage crafts, including basket weaving, birds of prey, archery and many stalls. All of
these events are staged in the historic setting of the Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge at
Chingford.
AWARD FOR A LIFETIME'S SERVICE TO THE STUDY
AND CONSERVATION OF BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS
A. Maitland Emmet MBE, TD, MA, FLS, Hon FRES, an Honorary Member of the Essex
Field Club, was recently presented with the first ever Butterfly Conservation Marsh
Award at the AGM of Butterfly Conservation. The award was for a lifetime of service to
the study and conservation of butterflies and moths.
The Field Club will include a profile on Maitland in the next issue of the Naturalist and
Dr David Corke has written an extensive article for Butterfly Conservation. The
following notes are a very brief extract from David's article.
Maitland is recognised as the leading expert on microlepidoptera. At the age of 90 he
works 7-days a week at his home in Saffron Walden as senior editor and major
contributor to the most detailed series of books on British butterflies and moths ever
published, the eleven volume series called The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and
Ireland.
After his retirement Maitland moved to Essex where he soon was actively involved in
studies of the county fauna. His "Smaller Moths of Essex" was the first book for any
county to contain distribution maps for all the "micros".
A bachelor all his working life, Maitland married Katie in 1972. Katie loved plants and
was enrolled by Maitland to search the Essex countryside for wild plants which were host
to rare moths. They made several visits to all the ten-km squares in Essex, searching
plants for leaf mines and also using their newly acquired moth trap.
The 23 years of "mothing" and life with Katie (she died in 1995) Maitland describes as by
far the happiest time of his life. Today he continues to work full-time on moths and on
fine nights he runs the moth trap in his garden. He has so far identified 992 species of
butterfly and moth from this small garden since he came to live there in 1962. One of his
remaining ambitions is to get this total up to 1000: he thinks there is a good chance of
doing this before the new millenium if the weather is good this spring and summer.
 Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 29, May 1999