Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)

This archive spans the years 2017 through 2025, a period marked by rapid advances in clean energy, medicine, technology, and social equity. It collects documented breakthroughs, policy wins, and scientific achievements from the present era. If you want evidence that progress is real and ongoing, this is where to look.

Aerial view of a turquoise French Polynesian atoll for an article about French Polynesia marine protected area, for article on debt-for-nature swap, for article on coral reef protection

Countries pledge to raise $12 billion to fund coral reef protection

By / / Good News For Humankind

Coral reef protection just got a major boost: more than 40 nations have pledged $12 billion by 2030 to safeguard the ocean ecosystems that roughly a billion people rely on for food, income, and storm protection. It’s the largest coordinated commitment of its kind, blending public, private, and philanthropic money so the work outlasts any one government’s budget. A meaningful share is aimed at frontline communities in the Pacific, Caribbean, and East Africa, where reefs sustain daily life but conservation funding has rarely reached. Scientists have spent years developing heat-tolerant coral strains that this funding could finally scale up. For a global movement long short on resources, this pledge marks a new baseline of ambition — and a recognition that reefs are worth fighting for.

Ni'isjoohl memorial pole, for article on Nisga'a totem pole repatriation

National Museum of Scotland returns stolen totem pole to Nisga’a people after 100 years

By / / Good News For Humankind

The Ni’isjoohl memorial pole has come home to the Nass Valley after 94 years in Scotland, marking the first time a British museum has returned a totem pole to an Indigenous community. The 11-meter red cedar pole, taken in 1929 while most Nisga’a people were away working, was flown across the Atlantic and welcomed by hundreds, including children who laid cedar branches around it as it rested in the sun. The pole had been commissioned by a grieving mother to honor her son, a warrior named Ts’wawit. Its return offers a hopeful precedent for Indigenous communities worldwide still seeking the return of stolen ancestors and belongings — a quiet but powerful shift in what museums can choose to be.