In 2011, we published the proceedings of Butterfly Conservation’s Sixth International Symposium ‘2010 and beyond for Lepidoptera’ (volume 15:1-365). That meeting attempted to assess whether the Convention on Biological Diversity’s aspiration to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss in the Lepidoptera had been achieved. Sadly the conclusion was that it had not. Nevertheless, the papers in that Special Edition were not uniformly concerned with doom and gloom and many reported important insights into species’ ecology and approaches which could lead to improvements in the future.Now, 4 years on, we publish the written contributions to the Seventh Symposium held in April 2014. The Symposium title was deliberately less focussed than that held in 2010 to attempt to capture a broad snapshot of work on Lepidoptera from around the world—in that it was successful, with over 80 presentations from 28 countries. The Journal is proud to present 20 written papers from that intense and ex ...