Colombia

This archive collects solutions-journalism stories and milestones from Colombia — covering environmental protection, community-led initiatives, public health advances, and other measurable progress. Each entry highlights what’s working and why it matters.

River dolphin, for article on river dolphin declaration

11 countries sign global pact to protect endangered river dolphins

By / / Good News For Humankind

River dolphins just got their first global lifeline: 11 countries have signed the Global Declaration for River Dolphins, a pact aiming to double Asian populations and halt declines across South America by 2030. It’s a meaningful turn for a group of species that has lost nearly three-quarters of its numbers since the 1980s. The hope isn’t abstract — China’s Yangtze finless porpoise population grew 23% over five years under strict protections, and the Indus river dolphin has nearly doubled in two decades. Because dolphins signal the health of the rivers nearly a billion people depend on, their recovery points toward something larger: that coordinated, community-rooted conservation can still pull ecosystems back from the brink.

Colombia rainforest landscape, for article on Amazon deforestation

Deforestation in Colombia down 70% year-on-year

By / / Good news links

Since taking power last year, leftist President Gustavo Petro has enacted a slate of new policies aimed at protecting Colombian forests, including paying locals to conserve woodland. The recent gains in Colombia mirror similar advances in the Brazilian Amazon, where leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has cracked down on forest clearing.

Colombia jungle at sunset, for article on Heritage Colombia

Colombia launches $245-million initiative to create and maintain protected areas

By / / Good News For Humankind

Heritage Colombia is one of the most significant conservation investments the country has ever made — pooling $245 million from governments, international institutions, and private donors to protect nearly 80 million acres of land and sea over the next decade. Colombia holds roughly 10% of the world’s biodiversity, making it one of the most ecologically critical places on Earth to get this right. Crucially, local communities are central to the design, not an afterthought. If it succeeds, Heritage Colombia could become a replicable model for how nations fund lasting, community-rooted conservation at scale.

Coral and fish, for article on coral reef restoration

Colombia launches largest ocean reef restoration project in the Americas

By / / Good News For Humankind

Colombia’s reef restoration effort is one of the most ambitious marine recovery programs anywhere on Earth — a government-backed push to plant one million coral fragments across 494 acres of degraded Caribbean seafloor. It pairs underwater nurseries and scientific method with indigenous and coastal communities whose knowledge of local waters runs deep. That combination matters: restoration ecologists consistently find that community-rooted programs outperform purely technical ones at scale. If it holds, this project offers a replicable model for reef recovery across the Caribbean and beyond.

Francia Marquez, for article on Francia Márquez vice president

Colombia elects first Black woman vice president, Francia Marquez

By / / Good News For Humankind

Francia Márquez became Colombia’s first Black woman vice president on June 19, 2022, winning alongside Gustavo Petro with just over half the national vote. A former housekeeper and single mother from Cauca, one of Colombia’s poorest provinces, she rose to office through years of grassroots organizing against illegal gold mining — work that earned her the Goldman Environmental Prize and, along the way, death threats she refused to back down from. Now leading a new equality ministry, she’s focused on women’s rights, rural health care, and education for communities long shut out. Her election doesn’t undo generations of exclusion, but it changes what’s imaginable — for Afro-Colombian girls, for environmental defenders, and for movements everywhere insisting the overlooked belong at the table.