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.

Red pandas in a tree, for article on red panda conservation area

Nepal opens first community-based red panda conservation area 

By / / Good News For Humankind

Red panda conservation just got a powerful new ally: Nepal’s Ilam Municipality has declared 116 hectares of temperate forest as the country’s first community-based protected area dedicated to these endangered animals. With only around 500 red pandas left in Nepal’s hill forests, every protected patch matters. What makes this declaration special is who’s leading it — a management committee of local forest user groups, Indigenous peoples, and pastoral families holds real governing authority, not a distant agency. Ecotourism is part of the plan, tying the animals’ survival to local livelihoods. As communities worldwide push for a greater voice in protecting the lands they call home, Ilam offers a hopeful blueprint for what locally rooted conservation can actually look like.

Bison grazing in a wide open meadow in Yellowstone National Park for an article about national park grant access, for article on National Park Foundation grant

National Park Foundation receives largest grant in its history to expand access

By / / Good News For Humankind

A record-breaking national park grant is bringing new momentum to America’s public lands. Lilly Endowment Inc. has donated 00 million to the National Park Foundation — the largest private gift ever made to the U.S. national park system and the biggest in the foundation’s nearly 60-year history. The funds will expand access for young people from underserved communities, protect threatened wildlife and ecosystems, and amplify the historically overlooked stories of Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, and other communities within park sites. The gift signals a meaningful shift in who national parks are understood to serve.

New Caledonia’s endangered cagou now thriving after conservation push

By / / Good news links

The flightless bird is considered endangered and experts estimate there are about 2,000 in New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific. A “massacre” by predators in 2017 killed about three-quarters of the population in the area. A similar incident three years later further hurt its numbers. But efforts to preserve and grow the population are paying off. A series of steps to protect the birds – including managing threats and tracking behavior – have seen their numbers triple since 2017.

Amazon

Peru establishes new Indigenous reserve in the Amazon for peoples in isolation

By / / Good news links

Indigenous organizations in Peru’s Amazon have achieved a milestone in a campaign that has lasted for almost two decades. Indigenous peoples living in isolation and initial contact (PIACI) will be protected within the recently declared Sierra del Divisor Occidental Indigenous Reserve, a territory they’ve long inhabited — and place where they have historically faced pressures that threaten their existence. The Indigenous reserve spans over 1.2 million acres in the Peruvian departments of Ucayali and Loreto.

Tiger lying down

Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests

By / / Good news links

The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. Thailand is the final stronghold of the Indochinese tiger, the subspecies having been extirpated from neighboring Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam over the past decade due to poaching, habitat loss, and indiscriminate snaring.

Baby crocodile

Near-extinct Siamese crocodiles make comeback in Cambodia

By / / Good news links

Cambodia has welcomed 60 baby Siamese crocodiles – a hatching record for the endangered species in this century, conservationists say. They have called it a “real sign of hope”, after more than 20 years of efforts to revive the reptile’s numbers in the remote Cardamom Mountains. The olive green freshwater reptile has a distinct bony crest at the back of its head – by some estimates, it can grow up to 3m or nearly 10ft.

Iberian lynx

Iberian lynx no longer endangered after numbers improve in Spain and Portugal

By / / Good news links

Less than a quarter of a century after the Iberian lynx was feared to be only a whisker away from extinction, populations of the animal have recovered enough across Spain and Portugal for it to be moved from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on the global red list of threatened species. According to the latest census, the lynx population on the peninsula has risen from just 94 in 2002 to 2,021 last year.

Peru fog oasis

Peru grants conservation status to 16,000-acre desert oasis site

By / / Good news links

Peru has granted formal conservation status to Lomas y Tillandsiales de Amara y Ullujaya, a unique fog oasis ecosystem on the arid Peruvian coastline. The state-owned land, which spans 15,936 acres in the Ica region of Southwest Peru and hosts hundreds of rare and threatened native species, will be protected for future research and exploration for at least three decades.