Conservation
Nature relies on a rich diversity of organisms to keep it in balance. Conservation plays a key role in ensuring that environmental equilibrium is preserved. Learn about the solutions spearheading our efforts to promote biodiversity, safeguard vital ecosystems, and protect endangered species.
Kenya unlocks $160 million to protect the Maasai Mara and Tsavo ecosystems
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Kenya committed $160 million over ten years to protect 173,000 square kilometers (roughly 67,000 square miles, or 17.3 million hectares) across some of the least-disturbed land in Africa: the Great Rift Valley, the Maasai Mara, and surrounding biodiversity Read More...
A Dutch startup is making concrete that grows its own moss
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Most building materials are designed to resist the elements, to stay sealed and unchanged for as long as possible. Respyre, a Dutch startup, is working from the opposite premise. The company has developed Mosscrete, a bioreceptive concrete coating that Read More...
What to leave alone in your garden this October to help overwintering bees
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Every fall there's a pull to tidy things up. Cut back the perennials, rake the leaves, clear the beds, put the garden to rest. It feels satisfying, honestly, and spring does seem to start from a cleaner place. The thing is, all that leaf litter, those hollow Read More...
Scientists discovered the world's largest octopus nursery off the California coast
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Most of the deep seafloor is cold, dark, and barely mapped. The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary covers more than 6,000 square miles of ocean along California's central coast and is better studied than most of it. Even there, researchers from the Read More...
How a floating shade can help coral survive a marine heatwave
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM When divers installed floating shade structures over 20 colonies of brain coral in the lower Florida Keys in August 2024, the corals underneath began recovering their color. The 20 colonies left unprotected grew paler through the hottest stretch of the Read More...
The floating scarecrow saving seabirds from fishing nets
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A bird-shaped kite and a floating scarecrow with spinning eyes reduced seabird deaths in Cornish fishing nets by up to 71 percent in a two-year trial. The devices cost relatively little, don't require significant changes to how fishers work, and are already Read More...
6 things that will bring more birds to your backyard this autumn
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM If you've ever caught a flash of movement in the branches in early October - something small and unfamiliar, not the usual backyard regulars - there's a good chance it was a migrating bird passing through and looking for somewhere to stop. Tens of millions Read More...
Colorado's largest wildlife overpass cut I-25 collisions by 91 percent
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Nine months in, North America's largest wildlife overpass has cut vehicle collisions on a stretch of Interstate 25 in Colorado by 91 percent. Before it opened, that corridor was averaging roughly one deer hit per day during peak migration. The crossing, a Read More...
Ethiopia's Green Legacy Initiative is turning citizens into foresters
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For most of the past century, Ethiopia was losing its forests. From the turn of the millennium to 2025, the country shed 560,000 hectares, about 2,160 square miles, of tree cover to agriculture, logging, and charcoal fuel. Then the government launched the Read More...
The tilcayo: new wildcat species discovered in Bolivia's cloud forest
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For years, biologists cataloguing Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest would note a small spotted cat and move on. Tiger cat, broadly speaking. The general profile fit and there was no obvious reason to dig further. Local communities had always called it Read More...