This short book is about conserving insects, the most diverse and abundant animals that share our world. In particular, it is about the common focus of conserving individual species of insects. This so-called ‘fine filter’ (or ‘fine grain’) level of conservation parallels much conservation effort for better-understood groups of animals such as mammals and birds, for which species-focused conservation exercises are commonplace. The need for insect conservation can appear puzzling, and how to undertake it can seem daunting to the many conservation practitioners unfamiliar with insects but to whom vertebrates or vascular plants are familiar – and, thus, that they can treat with greater confidence because of being within their range of practical expertise.We are thus dealing with insects as specific targets or individual foci for conservation. My main aim is to provide sufficient background information, illustrated by examples of insect species needs and conservation programmes from many parts of the world, to enable more confident and efficient progress for conservation of these ecologically indispensable animals. I hope to demonstrate and clarify to potential managers what the major ingredients of insect species management for conservation may be, and how those needs and ingredients may be integrated into effective and practical management or recovery plans.

The examples demonstrate the great variety of needs of ecologically specialised insects, the small scales over which they may operate, and how both assessment of conservation status and design of species conservation necessarily differs from that for many of the more popular and more widely understood organisms.