Civil society

Bison

Portugal welcomes first wild bison in 10,000 years as part of plan to rewild a quarter-million acres

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From Poland to Romania to the U.K., European wood bison are now firmly recognized as one of the best tools for returning what little wilderness Europe has left to as wild a state as possible. In Portugal, the gradual abandonment of the Greater Côa Valley has presented an unprecedented opportunity for rewilding in the small country. The government has already set aside a quarter million acres of land for conservation.

A person preparing for planting the plant

Campesinos plant nearly a million trees in deforestation hotspot in the Colombian Amazon

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More than 700 campesinos from the municipality of Cartagena del Chairá have started restoring more than 11,000 acres of degraded rainforest in one of Colombia’s deforestation hotspots. In collaboration with researchers from SINCHI, the Amazonian Scientific Research Institute, and the Association of Community Action Boards, the families have recorded more than 600 plant and more than 100 animal species in the area.

Karla Sofia Gascon

Karla Sofía Gascón becomes the first trans woman to win award for Best Actress at Cannes

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For the first time in its 77-year history, the Cannes Film Festival’s jury bestowed the award for Best Actress on an out transgender woman. Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón received the award at Saturday night’s gala awards ceremony alongside Adriana Paz, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez, her co-stars in French film-maker Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez.

A tiny olive ridley sea turtle crawling on sand

Bangladesh achieves major victory in olive ridley turtles conservation

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This year, Bangladesh has seen its highest number of olive ridley turtle eggs, thanks to extensive conservation actions, including building awareness among local people and the vigilance of local conservation groups to ensure favorable conditions for the species. The number of eggs has increased by almost 53% compared with the previous year, from 8,096 to 12,425. Those tallies represent a significant jump from the 4,713 eggs recorded in 2020-2021 and 5,763 in 2022-23. The olive ridley is listed as an endangered turtle on the IUCN Red List.

Howler monkey

Brazil takes pioneering action to rewild howler monkeys

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Brown howler monkeys, endemic to the Atlantic Forest in Brazil and Argentina, became one of the 25 most threatened primate species following a yellow fever outbreak in late 2016.
In response, Brazilian government agencies and other conservation organizations launched a nationwide population management plan, the first of its kind in the country, focused on coordinating captive facilities with experts who could relocate animals to areas where populations have vanished or declined.

Plastic pollution in the water

Plastic-choked rivers in Ecuador are being cleared with conveyor belts

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Created by the tech start-up Ichthion, the Azure system’s simple design has the capacity to stop and collect around 80 tonnes of plastic per day. The Azure system is a boom device that stretches across the river to stop objects floating on the surface. It extends two feet down into the water, allowing fish and other organisms to move freely below and is placed at an angle allowing the natural water flow to direct all debris into one corner of the riverbank.

Creek flowing

‘NATURE’ becomes an official streaming artist to raise millions for conservation

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Through the new “Sounds Right” project, ‘NATURE’ itself is registered as a streaming artist on major music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. This allows the Earth’s audio cameos to bring in money for protecting the environment worldwide. Streaming royalties earned by ‘NATURE’ will be collected by the EarthPercent conservation nonprofit, which hosts the Sounds Right Conservation Fund. The money will go to rights-based projects that focus on the world’s most biodiverse and threatened regions.

Mosquito on a leaf

New types of mosquito bed nets could cut malaria risk by up to half, trial finds

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Nets treated with two types of insecticide rather than one were trialed in 17 African countries where malaria is endemic between 2019 and 2022. During clinical trials when a net was coated with the insecticides pyriproxyfen or chlorfenapyr, alongside pyrethroid, malaria transmissions were reduced by between 20% and 50%. More than 600,000 people died from malaria in 2022 and 249 million people were infected, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization.

Indigenous person from Kogui people of Colombia

New online tool is first to track funding to Indigenous, local, and Afro-descendant communities

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The Path to Scale dashboard, developed in a partnership between the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and the Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN), provides information on funding from 133 donors since 2011 based on publicly available information. According to the developers, this publicly accessible dashboard will help donors, NGOs and rights holders identify critical funding gaps and opportunities in global efforts to secure communities’ rights.

Redwoods with sun shining through

Yurok Tribe becomes the first to manage land with U.S. National Park Service

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California’s Yurok Tribe, which had 90% of its territory taken from it during the gold rush of the mid-1800s, will be getting a slice of its land back to serve as a new gateway to Redwood national and state parks visited by 1 million people a year. The Yurok will be the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed by the tribe, Redwood national and state parks, and the non-profit Save the Redwoods League.