ONE of the volunteers integral to bringing a rare butterfly back to Exmouth s Bystock Nature Reserve after two decade years is stepping down as treasurer of the Bystock Nature reserve after 16 years.

ONE of the volunteers integral to bringing a rare butterfly back to Exmouth's Bystock Nature Reserve after two decade years is stepping down as treasurer of the Bystock Nature reserve after 16 years.

The treasurer of the Devon Wildlife Trust, the Exmouth and Bystock local group John Cousin is hanging up his boots.

John and his wife June joined Devon Wildlife Trust in 1993 shortly after moving to Exmouth and they were two of the volunteers the reserves' land manager at Bystock Matt Boydell praised in last week's Journal.

They and other volunteers had worked hard to reintroduce the silver-studded blue butterfly says volunteer Diane Lane.

She said: "They have both been very active in the Exmouth Group. As Treasurer, John has been room-booker and ticket salesman for the Group's winter talks, arranged street collections, delivered and collected DWT collection tins from local shops, as well as keeping the accounts.

"June has done refreshments for the talks and grown hundreds of plants for the annual plant sale which raised �580 this year.

"They were involved from the start in 2001 in making the DWT wildlife garden in Exmouth and rarely miss the work parties at Bystock every fortnight, where hard work has brought back the rare silver studded blue butterfly."

Although John has stepped down as treasurer neither John nor June are stopping volunteering.

"We'll be volunteers forever", said John.

John is succeeded as treasurer by Mike Tracey.