Wildlife & land conservation

This archive brings together 265 stories about wildlife recovery, protected lands, habitat restoration, and the communities driving conservation forward. From endangered species rebounds to new national parks and Indigenous-led stewardship, these articles document real, verifiable progress happening around the world. If you want evidence that protecting nature is working, this is where to look.

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.

A Polar bear surrounded by arctic wilderness, for article on Alaska petroleum reserve drilling limits

Biden limits oil drilling across 13 million acres of Alaskan Arctic

By / / Good News For Humankind

Thirteen million acres of Arctic Alaska just got a stronger legal shield, with the Interior Department banning new oil and gas leases outright across more than 10 million of them. The protected lands include Teshekpuk Lake, a summer gathering place for up to 100,000 geese and a continental waystation for birds that winter as far south as South America. A companion decision blocks the proposed 211-mile Ambler Road, which would have cut through caribou migration corridors and affected subsistence hunting in more than 60 Alaska Native communities. The rule won’t end every fight over Arctic drilling, and Indigenous voices remain genuinely divided. Still, safeguarding a wild expanse the size of Indiana is the kind of durable win conservation movements everywhere can build on.

Aerial view of river and mangroves

Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state

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Brazil’s Pará state has now protected almost all of its Amazonian coastline after establishing two new conservation units that make up the world’s largest and most conserved belt of mangroves. The environmental victory came after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed the decree for the two reserves on March 21, placing an additional 184,600 acres of mangrove ecosystems under federal protection.

Honeybee by yellow flowers

Hobbyist beekeepers help reverse America’s critical bee shortage in just 5 years

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Nearly a million bee colonies have been formed in the past five years, according to 2022 Census of Agriculture data from the USDA, boosting the total number of colonies to an all-time high of 3.8 million. The record high has arrived after nearly 20 years of collapsing colonies, where bees died from exposure to poisonous pesticides, stress from cross-country transit to pollinate crops, invasive pests, and changes to habitat.

Spotted owl

Biden administration restores threatened species protections in the U.S. dropped by Trump

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Among the changes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for animals and plants newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft specific plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines in the Rocky Mountains, alligator snapping turtles in the Southeast and spotted owls in California.

Tall old-growth redwood trees in northern California for an article about Yurok Tribe land return, for article on tribal co-management

Yurok Tribe becomes first Native people to co-manage land with the National Park Service

By / / Good News For Humankind

Yurok Tribe land return marks a historic milestone as the tribe reclaims 125 acres of ancestral territory and becomes the first Native nation to formally co-manage land alongside the National Park Service. The agreement returns the parcel known as ‘O Rew, near Orick in Humboldt County, after more than a century of displacement that stripped the Yurok of roughly 90% of their homeland. Ecological restoration is already underway, with thousands of juvenile salmon returning to a rebuilt Prairie Creek. The deal reflects a growing Land Back movement and sets a new precedent for Indigenous stewardship of public lands.

Milky Way arching over dark desert sagebrush landscape for an article about Oregon Outback dark sky sanctuary, for article on dark sky sanctuary

Oregon outback becomes world’s largest dark sky sanctuary at 2.5 million acres

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The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary has become the largest dark sky sanctuary on Earth, covering 2.5 million acres of southeastern Oregon’s Lake County after receiving official certification from DarkSky International. The designation protects skies already considered among the darkest in the world, with nearly 1.7 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management under commitments for ongoing monitoring and lighting improvements. Beyond stargazing, the protection matters for wildlife along the Pacific Flyway and species like bighorn sheep and sage grouse that depend on undisturbed terrain. Organizers hope the sanctuary could eventually expand to over 11 million acres.

Young trees, for article on African reforestation

The TREES program has planted tens of millions of trees across Africa since 2015

By / / Good News For Humankind

Reforestation done right looks less like a planting day and more like a four-year partnership with farmers — and the TREES program has quietly restored more than 41,000 hectares across nine African countries, an area roughly seven times the size of Manhattan. Instead of dropping seeds on remote land, TREES helps smallholder families build “forest gardens” of about 5,800 trees per hectare, weaving in fruit orchards, food crops, and windbreaks that feed households and generate a market surplus. In Kenya’s Kesouma region alone, 17,000 farmers have joined in. Earlier this year, the UN named it a World Restoration Flagship — a reminder that the most durable climate work tends to be the kind that pays the people doing it.

Wolf and cub

Health Canada to completely ban use of strychnine poison

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Strychnine has been used for decades to control animal pests, especially predators such as coyotes and wolves. Although it is highly effective, many consider it cruel. Strychnine kills by causing muscle cramps that eventually strangle the animal. A veterinary professor has called it “one of the worst ways to die.” The agency has declared a six-month phaseout period. That means all uses of strychnine will be illegal on September 7, 2024.