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.
This is a precedent-setting case in the country’s management of forests, representing the first time an area will be declared protected at the request of the resident community.
Scotland’s reforestation story just keeps growing: tree cover has tripled over the past century, climbing from under 6 percent of the country’s land to roughly 18 percent today. That’s close to forest levels not seen since medieval times. Behind the numbers are decades of work by government agencies, private landowners, and rewilding groups like Trees for Life, who’ve been steadily replacing fast-growing conifer plantations with native species like Scots pine, birch, and oak. Public enthusiasm is striking too — around 80 percent of Scots backed Highland reforestation in a 2021 survey. Scotland’s recovery is a hopeful reminder that landscapes stripped bare over centuries can begin healing within a single lifetime, when communities decide they want them back.
Jackson made history as the U.S. Senate confirmed her by a vote of 53-47. President Biden nominated Jackson to take over the seat of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
Portugal’s floating solar auction just made history with a negative price: one winning bidder agreed to pay the grid 4.13 euros per megawatt hour for the right to generate clean electricity over 15 years. EDP Renováveis pulled this off by bundling 70 megawatts of floating panels on Western Europe’s largest artificial lake with wind power and battery storage, letting the profitable pieces carry the solar contract. The environment ministry estimates the auction will deliver 114 million euros in savings for Portuguese electricity consumers. It’s a striking signal of how far renewable economics have come — and a glimpse of what’s possible when countries get creative about stitching clean energy technologies together.
By the 1950s, only a small population of Svalbard’s walruses remained. In 2006, researchers were thrilled to count 2,629 walruses, and the latest count in 2018 recorded 5,503.
The decision aims to strengthen the country’s HIV response by reducing the stigma and discrimination that often prevents people from receiving prevention, care, and treatment services.
At COP26, India announced the target to have 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade. These green bonds will offer a major boost toward this end.
The markhor was listed as an endangered species by the IUCN in 1994 due to overhunting for meat and horns, and its population number was estimated to be less than 2,500 at the time.
The UK’s total pipeline of offshore wind projects has now reached 86 gigawatts (GW), according to new research published today by not-for-profit renewable energy trade association RenewableUK.
The socialist-majority government will take over on March 30, in a week. For the first time ever in the history of Portugal, the majority of ministers are women, 9 out of 17.
