Malcolm Tait | Lightnews

Reclaim Our Moors @reclaimourmoors.bsky.social · Aug 10

🥾 Just shy of 200 people joined us up at Moscar Moor today to mark the start of the shooting season and united around our call for this huge grouse shooting estate in the Peak District to be taken into community ownership.

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Aug 6

Fascinating research from colleagues at @sheffielduni.bsky.social on impact of urbanization on moth and hoverfly populations

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Gardeners urged to collaborate to help moths and hover flies thrive in cities

Researchers found moths and hover flies are more negatively affected by urbanisation than bees

www.theguardian.com

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Aug 6

Completely agree - a garden is never going to replicate specialised habitats. I guess the message of providing as wide a mix as possible of plants, shrubs, and habitats is good tho, and gets us beyond the argument that all insects require is a patch of Rudbeckia!

Kate O’Neill @katefoneill.bsky.social · Aug 6

And lovely to see the data and code available under a CC0 licence too! doi.org/10.5061/drya...

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · Aug 2

For thousands of years, we have been parasitised, exploited and destroyed by elites. Our survival depends on overthrowing them.
Fascinating article by @dpcarrington.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse

An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

www.theguardian.com

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 26

It was great to speak on this great podcast. Excellent hosting from @itsbethperry.bsky.social and @goodfellowtom.bsky.social - we covered a lot in a short time, including the problematic way that the government is talking about newts and bats blocking development!

Sheffield Urbanism @sheffieldurbanism.bsky.social · May 26

Episode 4 of Urban Radar, in conversation with @malcolmtait.bsky.social on recent #planning reforms, raising a crucial question: Are these planning reforms guiding us in the right direction?

Tune in here lnkd.in/enVHKU6g

For any feedback write to is at : urbanradar-group@sheffield.ac.uk

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Jul 27

And another example from the French Alps where the marmots gamble, but where there aren't meadows full of Monarch butterflies!

Journal of Political Ecology @jpoliticalecology.bsky.social · Jul 27

Chapman, K. & Tait, M., (2025) “Commodification, labor, abstraction: Three key concepts to understand the many-headed hydra of biodiversity offsetting”, Journal of Political Ecology 32(1): 6186. doi: doi.org/10.2458/jpe....

@pollenetwork.bsky.social

Commodification, labor, abstraction: Three key concepts to understand the many-headed hydra of biodiversity offsetting

Natural capital approaches to mitigating the impacts of construction projects, in which environmental harms and mitigations are calculated and then traded, have become dominant features of contemporar...

doi.org

Tom Goodfellow @goodfellowtom.bsky.social · May 1

Everything is urban these days.

#Urban#Radar podcast ep 4 from @sheffieldurbanism.bsky.social

- urban water crisis
- urban impacts of tariff wars
- planning reforms, what they mean for biodiversity, & why we need to be more utopian!

Thanks to all our fab guests

open.spotify.com/episode/4ZI3...

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Jul 9

Really looking forward to it!

Stuart Spray @stuartspray.bsky.social · Jul 9

I am looking forward to discussing why the UK is so crap at looking after #biodiversity at the Byline Festival with Alexa Culver, @kitstoner.bsky.social, @malcolmtait.bsky.social and @carexnigra.bsky.social @bylinetimes.bsky.social
Visit the website to find out more: lnkd.in/eXfAnf3k

Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery @naturerecovery.bsky.social · Jul 4

Read our response to Defra's consultation on improving the implementation of #Biodiversity Net Gain for minor, medium and Brownfield development.

Our response to Defra’s consultation on improving the implementation of Biodiversity Net Gain for minor, medium and brownfield development

Read our response to the consultation here

naturerecovery.ox.ac.uk

Kiera Chapman @kierachapman.bsky.social · Jun 29

@skomerisland.bsky.social just put a BRILLIANT gay birds post up on Facebook, in celebration of Pride. And they are copping hate for it in the comments.

So please lets show them some love on here by dropping them a follow and a supportive tweet!

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Jun 28

Mine truly captures the majesty of these creatures. Let's see who wins!

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Jun 26

"the struggle between local residents and festivalgoers deserves less scrutiny than the tensions between austerity, profit and urban public space." @michaelchessum.bsky.social on Brockwell Park and YIMBYism

Uggly Fences www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ju...

Michael Chessum | Uggly Fences

‘Can’t you ping elsewhere?’ The question, daubed on the twelve-foot green fences encircling much of Brockwell Park...

www.lrb.co.uk

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Jun 11

Battleship grey of the battleship of a moth - the Poplar Hawk-moth

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · Jun 2

I thought at the time of the Spring Statement that the OBR estimates on housebuilding were extremely optimistic...

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 31

A nice couple of moths yesterday: Lime Hawkmoth and Elephant Hawkmoth. Both relatively common, but nonetheless very beautiful

Triangular shaped moth with light brown and green camouflage markings resting on stone.

Triangular moth with green-brown and pink markings resting on stone

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 26

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A new kind of gentrification is spreading through London – and emptying out schools | Anna Minton

Thanks to ‘placemaking’, thriving communities are hollowing out, to be replaced by luxury apartments and expensive restaurants, says author Anna Minton

www.theguardian.com

Sheffield Urbanism @sheffieldurbanism.bsky.social · May 25

At Urban Radar @malcolmtait.bsky.social & @kierachapman.bsky.social in conversation with Tom Goodfellow and Beth Perry talk about their recent report on biodiversity and planning, and why it's so important to rethink our planning approaches if we want to turn things around.

lnkd.in/enVHKU6g

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 25

And no mention in the working paper about local authority housing targets being raised in the current system if housebuilders fail to build speedily...

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 25

A rather belated admission from Government that housebuilders benefit from building slowly. Reheating quite a few existing ideas, and a lot rests on councils and housebuilders agreeing build out rates.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Developers face fines as Rayner steps up plans to speed up UK housebuilding

Councils will get powers to impose ‘delayed home penalty’ under latest government proposals

www.theguardian.com

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 24

Best discussion on housing, planning and nature that I've heard in a long time.

Thanks for mentioning our research on housebuilders failing to put in ecological features - given the news on swift bricks, I think we need to continue to shout about this failure!

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 24

Very frustrating news! Despite our research showing that 75% of bird boxes were not installed, despite being required in planning consents, apparently this isn't enough to move towards mandatory provision of swift bricks

Kiera Chapman @kierachapman.bsky.social · May 24

So Labour say they won't install swift bricks because they are moving away from specific species mitigations to landscape level ones.

But swifts nest IN BUILDINGS. So how is landscape-level compensation supposed to help? Just ecologically illiterate nonsense 🤦‍♀️

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Labour blocks proposal for ‘swift bricks’ in all new homes

MPs had previously backed Conservative amendment to ask developers to provide hollow bricks for endangered birds

www.theguardian.com

Kiera Chapman @kierachapman.bsky.social · May 24

So Labour say they won't install swift bricks because they are moving away from specific species mitigations to landscape level ones.

But swifts nest IN BUILDINGS. So how is landscape-level compensation supposed to help? Just ecologically illiterate nonsense 🤦‍♀️

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Labour blocks proposal for ‘swift bricks’ in all new homes

MPs had previously backed Conservative amendment to ask developers to provide hollow bricks for endangered birds

www.theguardian.com

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 16

Fascinating study - would be interesting to compare with the building of the 'Dutch roundabout' in Sheffield

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 15

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social goes ballistic on Labour's planning reforms, and quite rightly so. They give licence to trash nature, diminish democratic rights in planning decisions, and also won't work in building the 1.8m homes the government wants.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Labour has denounced me as ‘deeply misleading’ on its planning reform. I wish that were true | George Monbiot

Even it now admits that brick by brick, these proposals will wreck habitats. This could be Starmer’s most damaging mistake yet, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

Malcolm Tait @malcolmtait.bsky.social · May 15

Our Lost Nature report for the @rtpiplanners.bsky.social
is now written up in the @newscientist.com! A really good article and insightful comments from Natalie Duffus and Tom Oliver.

www.newscientist.com/article/2480...

www.newscientist.com

Jim Horsfall @jimhorsfall.bsky.social · May 14

I managed a jaunt to Lindrick Common this morning to check on the Rare Spring Sedge. This SSSI golf course is fairly sympathetically managed for it's interesting plants.

The last record for this site was 2008, so good to refind it. A fellow @sorbynathissoc.bsky.social found another patch last month

A small slender sedge with male flowers above (with a couple of anthers still present) and 2 lots of female flowers below (stigmas still visible).

Kiera Chapman @kierachapman.bsky.social · May 13

So Angela Rayner just issued a judgement based on the new Planning Policy Guidance about the greenbelt - and it's a sign of seismic change to come in the countryside.

So there used to be 5 purposes to the greenbelt. But these were recently been reduced by Labour to three.

1/?

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