🥾 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.

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

Fascinating research from colleagues at @sheffielduni.bsky.social on impact of urbanization on moth and hoverfly populations www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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/...

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

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

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

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

@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!

"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...

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

I thought at the time of the Spring Statement that the OBR estimates on housebuilding were extremely optimistic... www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

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

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!

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

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...

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

@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...

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...

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

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/?

Govt is portraying the new #PlanningBill as 'win-win' for nature & people. This is false. Sec of State needs to amend this statement so as not to mislead MPs' votes. We will apply for judicial review if correction not forthcoming ⚖️ wildjustice.org.uk/general/wild...

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Impact assessment of the Nature Recovery Fund is now out (link in article below). It essentially says that it will save housebuilders approx. £0.5bn (largely in capital costs) and will be beneficial to nature. However, it's based on very thin analysis. A 🧵 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Government running scared of mandating swift bricks costing £35 in new houses? It's getting a bit ridiculous if the worry is that it's somehow 'woke' www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Copy that! Another bumper episode from #urbanradar with @lizsharpyorks.bsky.social @kierachapman.bsky.social and @malcolmtait.bsky.social I also love @goodfellowtom.bsky.social talking about why embassies matter - taking us from Ancient Greece and into capital cities in Africa Link to episode 👇🏽

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...

Really pleased to take part in this excellent #urbanradar podcast with @kierachapman.bsky.social and Hugh Ellis from the @thetcpa.bsky.social. We talk nature and planning. Thanks to @itsbethperry.bsky.social and @goodfellowtom.bsky.social for putting it together open.spotify.com/episode/4ZI3...

I did a podcast for the wonderful @sheffieldurbanism.bsky.social, with @malcolmtait.bsky.social and Hugh Ellis, policy director of the TCPA. We talked about planning reform, nature, and the need for bigger urban ambitions. Listen here! open.spotify.com/episode/4ZI3...

Another removal of checks and balances from planning as part of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. It's popular to decry statutory consultees for being slow, but they input valuable expertise into decisions www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/a...

A great thread on the invertebrate life sustained by just one common plant, Red Campion, Silene dioica. Here's a picture of the Lychnis moth I took a couple of days ago - we need to support our ordinary, common plants

Plant these plants and you'll make your garden such a "hotspot" for wildlife that you'll attract a butterfly that is hardly ever seen in the UK! (The use of monarchs as the "generic" butterfly is a hobby horse of mine- and a big signal of corporate nature illiteracy).

"Its legacy, if this terrible bill is approved, will be a grimmer, greyer, unhappier nation." @georgemonbiot.bsky.social on the worrying 'pay to trash nature' proposals in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

That's 95k! We're 95% of the way to 100,000 signatures on our petition, which means we get a ban on driven grouse shooting debated in parliament. Only 5k to go! Please share & sign: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/70...

Important points on the ways that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill fails nature "Nature isn’t a “nice to have”, it’s all we have." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Attention grabbing headline, but also covers lower key nature restoration and BNG as an opportunity. But key issue with metric systems like BNG is their transaction costs favouring large institutional players not communities www.theguardian.com/environment/...

New #OA paper by @pillmad.bsky.social and Jason Slade develops a dual conceptual framework of logics deployed for culture and of associated forms of #CultureGovernance, applied to Sheffield, England buff.ly/jX6hJr9

The Planning Bill is not the win-win for nature & building we were promised 🚨 If the Bill proceeds unchanged, it will break new ground in the destruction of nature across England 🥀 Our full letter to Steve Reed and Matthew Pennycook 👇 www.wcl.org.uk/docs/2025/20...

Planning bill ‘throws environmental protection to the wind’, say UK nature chiefs

New article with Jason Slade on Sheffield's culture governance - and the importance of linking to the everyday to create an active, inclusive co-governance to support cultural producers, in place. @malcolmtait.bsky.social @sheffieldurbanism.bsky.social Available OA doi.org/10.1177/0042...

Parasitoid wasp Ichneumon stramentor. It lays eggs in the larvae of the Large Yellow Underwing and Setaceous Hebrew Character moths. The wasp larvae hatch and eat the moth larvae from inside...

Orange Underwing moth seen today on the edge of woodland near Sheffield. I normally see these flying around at the top of trees, so this is the first time I've seen one up close!

First butterfly of the year in the garden, and it's a Speckled Wood!

Couple of thoughts on the OBR #SpringStatement report: 1. Planning reform does a lot of heavy lifting to generate economic growth 2. Projected housing growth of 1.3m homes by 2029 projected to take off in the last 2 years. No thought of absorption rates? This all seems highly unrealistic obr.uk

Thoughtful take on the #PlanningBill from @richardbenwell.bsky.social Absolutely right to highlight risks of payment in lieu systems for nature recovery, and potential problems if designed poorly. My core concern is complexity of schemes like this and lack of attention to implementation

80,000 signatures on our petition to ban driven grouse shooting, we're not far off the magic 100K now 🙌 If you haven't yet signed please do to help us secure a Parliamentary debate on the issue → govpetition.uk/p/700036