Wondering what went right this week in the conservation world? We’ve got you covered with our Conservation Optimism Round-Up! Each week we are collating stories of optimism from around the globe so that you never miss your dose of Monday Motivation.

1. Harvard University will divest its $42bn endowment from all fossil fuels

” “It took conversations and protests, meetings with administration, faculty/alumni votes, mass sit-ins and arrests, historic legal strategies, and storming football fields. But today, we can see proof that activism works, plain and simple.””

2. Members of the IUCN World Conservation Congress approved the motion that calls to protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025, a move that is being celebrated by Indigenous peoples, conservationists and scientists. 

“Sixty-one governments and government agencies, and 600 NGOs and Indigenous peoples’ organizations voted in favor of the motion. While there were some abstentions, no party voted against the motion. .”

3. Platypuses are being reintroduced to the Royal National Park, Australia for the first time in 50 years

“The platypus is to our rivers what koalas are to our forests, but there’s a risk they will disappear if we don’t take bold steps to reverse their decline,” says WWF–Australia’s Rewilding Program manager, Rob Brewster. “This project will combine rigorous scientific monitoring with on-ground action to return platypus to rivers they once called home.”

4. Northern hairy-nosed wombats are back from the brink after dropping to just 35 in the 1980s

” Fifty years ago, their remaining populated habitat was gazetted as Epping Forest National Park, north of Clermont in central Queensland. Since then, and with the help of predator fencing, habitat management, and trial and error in learning about the species’ needs, the population has grown to more than 300.”

5. New births of baby mountain gorilla in DR Congo’s Virunga park

“The Baraka family records its first birth of the year and this last one brings the number to 13 since January 2021,” from all the gorilla families in the region”

6. India’s 1st dugong conservation reserve to be in Tamil Nadu

“The State government in Assembly on Friday declared 500 sq.km of the biodiversity-rich waters in the Palk Bay, on the southeast coast of Tamil Nadu, as India’s first dugong conservation reserve.”

7. Razan Al Mubarak becomes first woman from the Arab world to head IUCN

” Razan Al Mubarak, the Managing Director of both the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi and the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, was today elected President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), one of the world’s largest and best-known conservation institutions. Ms. Al Mubarak is the first woman from the Arab world to head IUCN and only the second woman to run lead the 73-year-old conservation organization.”

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