Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Prof Sarah Durant

@sarahdurant.bsky.social

2.1K followers 750 following 26 posts

Conservationist and scientist. Project Leader Africa Range-wide Cheetah Conservation Initiative www.cheetahconservationinitiative.com. Hon Prof at UCL. Views my own

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Prof Sarah Durant @sarahdurant.bsky.social · Oct 17

Just published in @natureportfolio.bsky.social - our commentary with @ceobs.bsky.social on the need to address the impacts of armed conflict on biodiversity at #COP16 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Conservation policies must address an overlooked issue: how war affects the environment

The impacts of armed conflict on biodiversity have long been neglected. A United Nations meeting hosted by Colombia is a golden opportunity to begin changing that.

www.nature.com

4 17

Prof Sarah Durant @sarahdurant.bsky.social · 6h

Results demonstrate the critical need to co-develop cheetah coexistence strategies focused on reducing costs and increasing benefits of living with cheetahs, while coupling improvements in rangeland management with enhanced livelihood sustainability. As well as strengthening law enforcement.

1 2

Prof Sarah Durant @sarahdurant.bsky.social · 6h

Many respondents reported it was acceptable to capture live cheetah cubs and that live capture occurred in their area. These surveys were undertaken in areas where illegal trade in cheetah cubs is likely to be widespread.

Prof Sarah Durant @sarahdurant.bsky.social · 6h

Our paper just published on the relationships between pastoralists and cheetah in the Horn of Africa. More than 60% of respondents reported a cheetah attack in the last year and reported that killing cheetahs was widespread. www.frontiersin.org/journals/con...

Frontiers | Attitudes, norms, and beliefs of pastoralists toward cheetahs in the Horn of Africa

Free-ranging African cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) inhabit only 13% of their former range. A subspecies of particular conservation concern is the Northeastern ...

www.frontiersin.org

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · Aug 6

Earlier this year, I made two trips to Sudan, where a terrible civil war has displaced 14 million people. The state is absent, international institutions are weak.Outside powers, motivated by greed and nihilism, have stepped into the vacuum

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

This Is What the End of the Liberal World Order Looks Like

In a post-American world, greed and nihilism are destroying Sudan.

www.theatlantic.com

75 900 2.1K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · Jul 4

NEW CHART: Trump's "big beautiful bill" & other efforts to dismantle climate policy means the US will add an extra 7bn tonnes of emissions to the atmosphere from now until 2030, compared to meeting its former climate pledge under the Paris Agreement 🫠

www.carbonbrief.org/...

7 79 110

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Markus W. Gehring @mwgehring.bsky.social · Jun 26

Another must read for anyone interested in climate litigation - great @granthamlse.bsky.social report.

www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminst...

Global trends in climate change litigation: 2025 snapshot - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment

An exploration of key trends and evolutions in global climate change litigation from the calendar year 2024, plus important new developments through to May 2025.

www.lse.ac.uk

2 8

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Dorothy Bishop @deevybee.bsky.social · May 5

that’s Elon Musk FRS doing his bit for US science, @royalsociety.org

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · May 2

Hearing now that every National Science Foundation grant is having to go through a new “DOGE review”. So existing grants and long term science and technology research having to undergo review by one of Elon’s interns. Huge percentage not passing their muster.

9 84 210

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Richard Branson @richardbranson.bsky.social · Apr 25

(1/4) It was America and Britain that guaranteed the sovereignty of Ukraine and its borders in return for persuading them to give up their nuclear weapons.

680 5.2K 19K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · Apr 18

I'm really sorry, but we just need to stop doing this. Your wood-burning hygge leads directly to people's deaths - other people's and perhaps your own.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Map reveals residential wood-burning hotspots in England and Wales

Researchers analyse energy performance certificate data to identify areas with potentially high particle pollution

www.theguardian.com

96 320 1.1K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Led By Donkeys @ledbydonkeys.org · Mar 3

If Trump was President in 1940

81 1.8K 3.7K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · Apr 16

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

270 6.2K 14K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Eric McDaniel @ericm.cd · Apr 17

I look at close to 100 stories a week and even more outside of work. I’ve done this ten years.

This is among the most horrific things I’ve ever read — testimony from dying children whose access to medicine has been cut off by the Trump administration.

www.npr.org/sections/goa...

Haunted by hopelessness: 12 Zambians share their stories as HIV drugs run out

Mothers and children, husbands and wives, doctors, truck drivers and religious leaders are all grappling with the fallout from the sudden U.S. cuts in aid.

www.npr.org

10 2K 3.6K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · Apr 15

2/4. The entire practice of the Holocaust of the Jews involved zones of statelessness. It is easier to move people away from law than it is to remove law from people. Almost all of the killing took place in artificially created stateless zones.

74 3.9K 15K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Dr. Jessica M. DeWitt @jessicamdewitt.bsky.social · Apr 13

I just attended a conference in the US. We had one speaker detained and two others turned away at the border.

Chris Ashwood @cashwood.proteaglyco.com · Apr 13

There are great conferences and science in the US, but with the way things are right now, it’s too risky to attend.

Australian academics refuse to attend US conferences for fear of being detained

‘When academics fear travelling or partnering with US institutions, the impacts ripple through the entire global knowledge ecosystem,’ one says

www.theguardian.com

130 3.3K 7.1K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Paul Voosen @voosen.me · Apr 11

BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency.

Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.

Trump seeks to end climate research at premier U.S. climate agency

White House aims to end NOAA’s research office; NASA also targeted

www.science.org

120 1.7K 2.2K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

SDSN @unsdsn.org · Apr 8

📢 SDSN President Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and VP Guillaume Lafortune have co-authored a new Correspondence in Nature addressing the recent and explicit opposition to the #SDGs by the United States.

🔗 Read the Correspondence: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

1 5 6

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · Apr 7

There are many people in prison (including Ms Connolly) who in my view do not need to be there.

But I’d venture that better evidence of a two-tier society is a national media outlet offering a soft focus profile minimising racist incitement to violence because a prisoner is married to a politician.

21 130 570

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · Apr 7

I get the stock market is bad but the equivalent has already happened to foreign aid, research funding, and public health. Everyone didn't freak out because there isn't some ticker on the news measuring the number of cancer researchers and Ebola prevention experts being fired.

44 580 3K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Patrick Randolph-Quinney @kabweprq.bsky.social · Apr 5

Essential reading for anyone thinking of travelling to the US. Rebecca Burke's experiences are horrific - but there are many more people still in custody who shouldn't be there. The US is now a failed state. Best leave it well alone.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I was a British tourist trying to leave America. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre

Graphic artist Rebecca Burke was on the trip of a lifetime. But as she tried to leave the US she was stopped, interrogated and branded an illegal alien by ICE. Now back home, she tells others thinking...

www.theguardian.com

1 2 5

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Heard Island Government @heardislandgov.bsky.social · Apr 4

Effective immediately: Heard Island will be canceling our contract with Spacex for ALL future space travel. Dr. Amelia Sealhart and CPT Charles Icebergh will be leading our charge to adapt all flightless birds to flight capability. This will supplement our already extensive Albatross Space Force

55 520 2.8K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Wild Justice @wildjustice.bsky.social · Apr 4

Too edgy for Private Eye?

We recently ran the 1st of 3 ads in Private Eye magazine. But after our 1st they told us they wouldn't run any more.

Did they give in to pressure from the shooting industry or another vested interest?

Private Eye- too establishment for Wild Justice!

29 130 380

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Heard Island Government @heardislandgov.bsky.social · Apr 3

Breaking now: Ministry of Economics reporting the tariffs have not caused significant changes to our trading volumes

100 1.3K 5.8K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · Apr 4

Never doubt the malevolence of Trump, his staff and his supporters. But also never underestimate their pure incompetence and stupidly

4 25 150

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Sophy Ridge @sophyridge.bsky.social · Apr 3

We've been talking an awful lot about how the Trump tariffs will hit the big players: the UK, China, Canada, France, Germany etc
But it's time to talk about the ones who DON'T have loud voices. Because some of the poorest countries in the world are going to be crippled by what happened last night

42 490 1.6K

Reposted by Prof Sarah Durant

Shashank Joshi @shashj.bsky.social · Apr 3

Fact-checking these pathological liars is exhausting, but important to note that this claim - that US sanctions mean zero trade with Russia, so no tariffs needed - is completely false. By USTR’s own count American imported $3bn of Russian goods last year. ustr.gov/countries-re...

39 450 1.2K