Every day, people protect what matters. These are their stories.
1607 stories
Thousands of visitors have been flocking to Twycross Zoo in Warwickshire, England, to see their dazzling holiday spectacle called "Lanterns Of The Wild" since it opened on November 14. The stunning display is illuminated by more than 2,000 hand-craft...
Lemurs at Risk, Protectors Struggling Nearly four decades ago, Patricia Wright arrived in Madagascar to search for a lemur thought to be extinct. Not only did she find that lemur, but she also discovered a new species. This led to the creation of...
German Hairy Snails Disappearing from London's River Thames Meet the German hairy snail (Pseudotrichia rubiginosa): a tiny mollusk with a hairy shell that lives along the River Thames in England, among other places. Researchers believe that its...
5 Captivating Images from National Geographic's Pictures of the Year National Geographic's annual "Pictures of the Year" project showcases the most inspiring and thought-provoking images captured by the magazine's renowned photographers. This yea...
The 'Durham Cow' in Durham, England There are not many cities in the United Kingdom, let alone the world, that have as fascinating backstory to their origin than that of the northern enclave known as Durham. If one is to believe this incredible f...
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PFAS contamination has become one of the most pressing environmental issues of the last decade. These chemicals appear in everything from non-stick pans and waterproof clothing to industrial firefighting foams. Over time, PFAS seep into rivers, lakes...
Established in 1658, Deep Hollow Ranch is the oldest working cattle ranch in America. It originally served as a seasonal pasture for cattle and sheep who were driven to the tip of Long Island to graze on the maritime grasses each summer. Over the ce...
As the sliver of a new moon shines over Kāneʻohe Bay, Oʻahu, millions of tiny orbs ascend from a reef and swirl in the water column. These spheres are bundles of coral eggs and sperm responding to lunar cycles and chemical cues in the water that tell...
Fish gills may inspire an unexpected solution to one of our biggest sources of microplastics. According to researchers at Germany's University of Bonn, taking a cue from the animals' filtration systems might help remove the vast majority of harmful p...
Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares his perspective on the pivotal decision to transition the organization's business model away from advertising. The transition in 2012 was a turning point for Mongabay. At the time, the advertising model was...
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In 2010, heavy rainfall in Tennessee caused historic flooding that eroded farmland and deposited sandy soil, making it difficult to return to productive use. However, this decline in usefulness also presented an opportunity to restore the land to its...
'We miss having a dog but it's the price you pay': the village that banned pets to save wildlife Bill Smart, a 77-year-old retired mechanical engineer, has never heard the term "solarpunk," but he says the definition fits his eco-community on Aus...
A brand new elephant calf made his grand entrance into the world at the Columbus Zoo on October 21. This baby elephant was a big boy, weighing in at 222 pounds at birth, and the zoo couldn't wait to show him off. They shared the first peek on October...
A Rare Bright Spot for Whales Populations of northern bottlenose whales (Hyperoodon ampullatus), playful animals that resemble large dolphins, stretch across the Atlantic Ocean. Historically, commercial whaling targeted these animals, causing t...
Golf courses are often associated with environmental waste, not solutions. For example, the average 18-hole golf course in California guzzles up 90 million gallons of water per year - the equivalent of 136 Olympic-sized swimming pools. However, the...
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Decades-old Palm Trees Bloom for the First and Only Time in Rio In Rio de Janeiro's Flamengo Park, towering talipot palm trees are flowering for the first and only time in their lives. These decades-old palms were introduced to the park by renown...
Will NYC's Pension Funds Once Again Lead the Nation on Climate Change? Comptroller Brad Lander has proposed moving some of the city's enormous pension fund business from dirtier to cleaner money managers. If he gets the pension fund trustees to e...
For three decades, scientists have tracked Bonelli's eagles in southern Spain, home to much of the endangered European population of the massive bird. Despite facing numerous threats, including territorial conflicts, clashes with golden eagles, nests...
Each rocket launch sends valuable materials into the sky that cannot be recovered, while also releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases and chemicals that damage the ozone layer. A new paper published December 1 in the Cell Press journal Chem Circu...
Delegates at a global summit to update international wildlife trade rules have agreed on sweeping new protections for more than 70 shark and ray species. The move marks a significant step toward effectively tightening the legal trade in some of the w...
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Farmers plant or preserve riparian buffers for various reasons, such as improving water quality, controlling erosion, or maintaining hunting habitat. Now, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign underscores the benefits of ripari...
A Remarkable Restoration: How Orange Peels Revived a National Park In 1997, ecologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs approached an orange juice company in Costa Rica with an unusual proposal. The company could dump its discarded orange peels...
Rare Seahorses Bounce Back After Pandemic Lull From 2018 to 2020, no one in Dorset, England spotted a single spiny seahorse off the sandy beaches of Studland Bay. But the COVID-19 pandemic offered a silver lining. Without the constant influx of t...
What escapes the lint trap? Dryers emerge as overlooked microfiber polluters...with a simple fix Laundromats are an important source of airborne microfibers, according to a new study. The fix could be as simple as installing an extra filter on cl...
New Method Crystallizes Carbon Dioxide into 'Rock Candy,' Lowering Capture Cost A team from the University of Toronto has designed a new technique for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air. The method, called evaporative carbonate crysta...
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The Huellelhue River estuary in southern Chile's Los Lagos region is home to natural beds of the choro mussel (Choromytilus chorus), a large mollusk native to the coasts of Chile and Peru. This filter-feeding species thrives in the estuary's mix of...
Hurricane Season is Over: Why the U.S. Escaped Major Impacts Back in April, scientists predicted an above-average hurricane season, with nine or ten named storms and four potentially reaching major strength. Yet the 2025 hurricane season ended on...
Paul Barnes, who leads the Zoological Society of London's EDGE of Existence program, has spent the past few years listening to the frustrations of early-career conservationists. The stories are rarely about fieldwork itself. They're about making rent...
Sudip Thakali, a 37-year-old resident of the Trans-Himalayan village of Thini in Mustang district, Nepal, is planning to change the roof of his family's ancestral home from mud to blended cement concrete (BCC) to avoid water leakage during the rains....
Solar-lit Fishing Nets Cut Sea Turtle Bycatch by 63% in Mexico Trials In the waters off Isla el Pardito in Mexico's Gulf of California, where rocky reefs meet mangrove swamps, marine biologists and veteran fishers are using the power of the sun t...
Brightcast is dedicated to restoring faith in humanity by highlighting the progress, solutions, and kindness that often go unnoticed. We believe in a balanced worldview.
Read our full mission →
Thankful for Optimists: A Thanksgiving Shout-Out to The Optimist Daily Community In this special Thanksgiving mini-episode of The Optimist Daily's Weekly Roundup, Karissa and Arielle press pause on the usual headlines to say thank you. They share...
If you listen closely in Kentucky, you can hear the rainforest in southern Mexico The hills of Kentucky might seem like a separate world from the Selva Maya rainforest in Central America. But they are just a song away. When someone hears the twi...
Saving the Saimaa Ringed Seal For the last 12 years, volunteers have ventured out in freezing temperatures to Finland's Lake Saimaa every winter. This is the habitat of the Saimaa ringed seal, one of the world's most endangered seal species. His...
The Woman on a Mission to Make the World More Bike-Friendly Canadian native Melissa Bruntlett fell in love with the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands after visiting in 2016. She and her husband had gone there to write a series of articles...
How religious beliefs may help protect Mentawai's forests Off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the Mentawai Islands rise from the Indian Ocean in a patchwork of forests and rivers where macaques, gibbons and hornbills thrive. Among the In...
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Behind Sri Lanka's 'Fish Rain' Lies a Web of Migrations Now Blocked by Rising Dams From time to time, curious tales of "fish rain" grab media attention: fish seemingly fall from the sky, far from any bodies of water, following heavy downpours. Th...
Eric Boyd and his research team investigated how a burst of small earthquakes in 2021 affected the communities of microbes living deep beneath the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field. These microbes inhabit rock and water systems far below the surface...
'It fully changed my life!' How young rewilders transformed a farm – and began a movement At Maple Farm in rural Surrey, nature is returning in droves: nightingales, grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects. This remarkable recovery is all thank...
For the first time in at least a quarter century, puffins have appeared on the Isle of Muck in County Antrim, Scotland. This triumphant return is a milestone conservationists are calling a powerful sign of recovery. The tiny island, managed by Ulster...
This 'Feisty' Asian Elephant at the National Zoo Is Pregnant. She May Birth the First Calf Born There in Nearly 25 Years With fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants estimated to be remaining in the wild, the Smithsonian's announcement gives hope to th...