Recently, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported on good news climate and conservation stories that likely went under the radar with all the crises going on in the world this year. In September, the U.K. closed its last coal-fired power plant. It was a highly symbolic decision given that coal launched the industrial revolution. Renewable energy production grew rapidly this year with China taking the lion's share with its solar power projects. In a fascinating move, natural places, spaces and wild species around the world were given 'personhood' status and legal protection. The Azores announced a new marine protected area protecting 28 species of marine mammals and 560 species of fish. Brazilian Amazon deforestation dropped to a nine-year low. Conservation efforts in Kazakhstan shone with the endangered Saiga Antelope population exploding from just 20,000 in 2003 to 2.86 million today. And in California, the Native American Yurok tribe helped spearhead the return of salmon to the Klamath River while running a release project to increase the population of the endangered California condor. Appreciation to authors of the BBC article, Isabelle Gerretsen, Martha Henriques, Katherine Latham, Lucy Sherriff and Jocelyn Timperley.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. Opened in 2008, the gene bank preserves duplicates of 1,301,387 seed samples representing over 4,000 different species from almost every country in the world. Its purpose is to preserve seed collections as the foundation of future food supplies in the event of the fallout of war, climate change, international crisis, or a global catastrophe. In October, over 20 countries deposited additional seed varieties representing the second-largest multi deposit event since the Vault’s inception. Among many other crops, the deposit included pearl maize and sorghum from first-time contributor Chad, maize and bean varieties from a 400-year-old university in Bolivia and thousands of rice varieties from the Philippines. With so many threats to food production, the global seed vault has greater value than ever.