Nations

This archive collects milestones and progress stories involving nations — countries and their governments — acting to improve lives, protect rights, or address shared challenges. From policy breakthroughs to international cooperation, these stories show what countries are doing right.

Mangrove forest, for article on Pakistan mangrove restoration

Pakistan has expanded mangroves nearly threefold between 1986 and 2020

By / / Good News For Humankind

Pakistan’s mangrove forests have nearly tripled since 1986, growing from about 48,000 hectares to 144,000 hectares — a striking reversal of the global pattern of mangrove loss. Most of that expansion sits in the Indus Delta, where roughly 100,000 people depend on healthy mangroves for fishing livelihoods. The recovery has been driven by an unusual mix: provincial forest departments, international scientific partnerships, carbon credit financing, and fishing villages whose residents work as nursery hands and patrol against illegal cutting. In one coastal town, a single nursery holds 50,000 saplings ready for planting. As coastlines worldwide face rising seas and intensifying storms, Pakistan’s quietly persistent restoration offers a real-world template for what sustained, community-rooted conservation can achieve.

Woman holding Turkish flags

Women in Turkey win right to keep surnames after marriage

By / / Good news links

Women in Turkey can use their own surnames after they marry, now that a rule forcing them to take their husband’s surname has been overturned. Article 187 of the Turkish civil code previously stated that a woman had to take her husband’s surname upon marriage, however she could use her own surname first “with a written application to the marriage officer or later to the civil registry office.” The new decision by the Turkish Constitutional Court came into effect on January 28, following a ruling in April 2023.

Squirrel monkey, for article on Indigenous-led land management

New fund supports Indigenous-led land management in biodiverse area of Bolivia

By / / Good News For Humankind

Indigenous communities in Bolivia’s Madidi Landscape just launched a dedicated conservation fund, opening with $650,000 from the Bezos Earth Fund to back work they’ve been doing for generations. Four nations — the Tacana, Lecos, T’simane Mosetene, and San José de Uchupiamonas — will direct the money themselves through an Indigenous-led board, finally putting resources behind territorial plans they first drafted twenty years ago. Madidi National Park is the most biodiverse protected area on land anywhere, home to more than 9,000 recorded species, from Andean condors to maned wolves. Globally, only a sliver of conservation funding reaches Indigenous hands directly, even though these communities steward most of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Funds like this one offer a hopeful blueprint for changing that.

Meskel Square traffic in Addis Ababa, for article on fossil fuel vehicle ban

Ethiopia becomes first country to ban combustion-powered vehicles

By / / Good News For Humankind

Ethiopia just became the first country anywhere to ban the import of gasoline and diesel cars, with the policy announced in late January 2025. What makes this remarkable is the foundation underneath it: every kilowatt powering an Ethiopian EV comes from renewable sources, mostly hydropower, so these vehicles are genuinely zero-emission from the moment they plug in. The shift is also deeply practical — Ethiopia has been spending around $6 billion a year on oil imports, with most of that fueling vehicles, money that can now flow into homegrown clean transport instead. Wealthier nations have led on EV adoption, but none have drawn this line. Ethiopia just showed the rest of the world a bolder version of what’s possible.

Woman putting organic waste in the compost bin

France implements compulsory composting

By / / Good news links

As of January 2024, municipalities in France must now provide residents with ways to sort bio-waste, which includes food scraps, vegetable peels, expired food and garden waste. Households and businesses are required to dispose of organic matter either in a dedicated small bin for home collection or at a municipal collection point. The waste will then be turned into biogas or compost to replace chemical fertilizers.

Traffic in a Chinese city, for article on China EV market share

25% of new car sales in China were fully electric in 2023 for the first time ever

By / / Good News For Humankind

China’s EV transition crossed a remarkable threshold in 2023, with one in four new cars sold being fully battery-electric — and plug-in vehicles of all types capturing 37% of the market. That’s a stunning leap from just three years earlier, when plug-ins held only 6.3% of sales. Affordable pricing from Chinese automakers like BYD, plus the rise of range-extended models that ease driver anxiety, are fueling the shift. Analysts note that once EV adoption passes roughly a quarter of a market, momentum tends to build on itself as charging networks grow and electric becomes the default choice. It’s a hopeful signal that the world’s biggest car market may be tipping toward clean transportation faster than anyone expected.

Empty office desk and chairs, for article on four-day workweek trial

Germany launches large four-day workweek trial

By / / Good News For Humankind

Four-day workweek research is gaining serious momentum, and Germany’s new pilot puts it to the test in one of the world’s most productivity-focused economies. Forty-five companies joined a six-month trial, maintaining full pay while cutting hours by 20% — a genuine business bet, not an academic exercise. Earlier U.K. trials showed promising results, though critics note that only companies already suited to compressed schedules tend to volunteer, limiting how broadly findings apply. Still, each new dataset strengthens the global case that working less might mean working better.

Streets of Palau Koror and coves of coral reefs, for article on High Seas Treaty

Palau is the first nation to ratify treaty to protect high seas

By / / Good News For Humankind

Palau just became the first country in the world to ratify the High Seas Treaty, the international agreement aimed at protecting the two-thirds of the ocean that lies beyond any nation’s borders. This tiny Pacific nation of around 340 islands has long led by example, having already shielded 80% of its own waters from fishing and mining — the highest share of any country on Earth. Once 60 nations ratify, the treaty becomes binding law, opening the door to marine protected areas, environmental reviews, and shared benefits from deep-sea discoveries. Chile and the Maldives are close behind, with advocates hopeful the threshold could be met by mid-2025. Palau’s message is simple and powerful: the ocean has no borders, and protecting it is a shared inheritance.

Cosmetics

E.U. will force cosmetic companies to pay to reduce micropollutants

By / / Good news links

Under draft rules that follow the “polluter pays principle”, companies that sell medicines and cosmetics will have to cover at least 80% of the extra costs needed to get rid of tiny pollutants that are dirtying urban wastewater. Governments will pay the rest, members of the bloc said, in an effort to prevent vital products from becoming too expensive or scarce.

Desert landscape at sunset, for article on Mexico protected areas

Mexico announces 20 new protected areas covering more than 5 million acres of land

By / / Good News For Humankind

Mexico’s protected areas just expanded by 2.3 million hectares — roughly 5.7 million acres — with 20 new designations spanning 12 states and two coastal zones. The largest, Bajos del Norte national park in the Gulf of Mexico, safeguards grouper spawning grounds, hawksbill turtles, and the livelihoods of more than 3,000 fishing families along the Yucatán coast. Inland, the new Sierra Tecuani biosphere reserve formalizes jaguar habitat that Indigenous ejido communities in Guerrero have quietly tracked and tended for over a decade. Other sites shelter whale sharks, Pacific sea turtle nesting beaches, and the burrowing Mexican prairie dog. The most hopeful thread here isn’t the decree itself — it’s the recognition that lasting conservation tends to grow from the communities already doing the work.