Indigenous Communities Doing Good

The ultimate list of the best good news stories from the year 2021.

2021 may have been the year we saw the first inclinations that longtime wildlife conservation and protection efforts were really paying off: for turtles, rhinos, tigers, pandas, bald eagles, and more.

At the Standing Rock Reservation between North & South Dakota, a community of Indigenous activists is working to protect water and water systems across the U.S. They are known as Water Protectors: a group of cultural organizers who believe in the sacred nature of water and land.

Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, said she is 'proud to be in a position' to start with a term offensive to Indigenous women on 650 different places on federal land.

Members of nearly 40 Indigenous communities in northern Peru were given training to use smartphone mapping apps that receive early deforestation alerts.

A new plan called the Amazon Sacred Headwaters initiative proposes the protection of 80% of the Amazon in Peru and Ecuador by 2025, consisting of 35 million hectares (86 million acres) of rainforest.