By Ruby E. Carlino

With about 250 million people active on social media in this country, algorithms significantly control the news we see these days. In this media ecosystem, maximized engagement is often the goal, serving us content that holds our attention — often by amplifying sensational news and misinformation.

There certainly is really bad news out there, so it might become easy to think there is no good news in the world. There is, of course, some good news in an increasingly distressing world. We just need to sift through the slop that have invaded our media feeds.

This past August, Washington state moved to conserve 77,000 acres of old forest on state lands. These naturally regenerated forests, called “legacy forests,” hold vital biodiversity and are at risk of logging. Reports this past summer noted that timber industry groups and legacy forest activists both were unhappy with the lands commissioner’s decision.

Washington’s Natural Resources Department noted that the order conserves 77,000 acres of structurally complex forests, including all remaining older forests on state lands managed for timber. “These older stands will become the old growth forests of tomorrow,” the department noted.

Meanwhile, in a neighboring state, 17,030 acres of ancestral land were returned to the Tule River Indian Tribe by the state of California. This reportedly was the largest ancestral land return in the Sierra Nevada foothills and Central Valley region.

The governor’s office called this “a milestone in California’s efforts to address historical wrongs against California Native American tribes, as well as in the state’s work to restore and protect critical ecosystems.”

Last month, with tribal leaders in attendance, the state also reintroduced the Tule elk to the area. Tule elk, like our own Roosevelt elk here, are two of the four surviving elk subspecies of North American elk. The Tule elk, the smallest of North American elk, range widely in California but hadn’t been seen in the Sierra foothills for decades.

Across the pond, Danish researchers at Aarhus University discovered a “molecular switch” that lets plants partner with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Science Daily says that early success in barley hints that cereals may eventually be engineered to fix nitrogen.

According to Science Daily, “if these modifications can be applied to other cereals, it may ultimately be possible to breed wheat, maize, or rice capable of fixing nitrogen on their own, similar to legumes.” The potential could be significant, reducing use of fertilizers while increasing global food production.

Over in Africa, there is a desert antelope that is able to survive with very little water and to withstand internal body temperatures as high as 115F. The graceful scimitar horned oryx was once widely distributed on the northern edges of the Sahara from Tunisia southwards to Niger and Chad. Over-hunted in Chad for its meat and horns in the 1970s-1980s, it apparently became one of the only species in history to go from being classified “extinct in the wild” in 2000 to being listed “endangered” in 2023.

According to Sahara Conservation, a first group of 25 scimitar-horned oryx was flown from Abu Dhabi to central Chad in 2016, marking the beginning of the reintroduction program. The first oryx calf was born in Chad nine years ago this month. The population has since flourished. The wild population now exceeds 600 oryx.

Recent tracking data indicates that animals released in late 2024 were observed travelling more than 100 km from the release site within weeks. This highlighted not only their ability to explore but also their adaptability to the vast desert landscapes.

As a dedicated gardener, one of my favorite pieces of great news for the year is the Millennium Seed Bank’s 25th year celebration of seed banking. The MSB said, “The seed bank was set up to combat the effects of biodiversity loss and climate change and ensure the world’s plants were safeguarded for use by future generations.”

The seed bank, part of the UK’s Kew Royal Botanic Garden, now has nearly 2.5 billion seeds from over 40,000 species. These seeds have been cleaned, dried and stored in walk-in freezers at minus 20 degrees. The seed collection was made possible through a global collaborative effort involving 279 partners from 100 countries.

And in a happy bit of related news, National Public Radio reported recently that the green sea turtle is no longer on the list of endangered species of the world. During his NPR interview, Bryan Wallace of the International Union for Conservation of Nature said, “If you do the right things in the right places with the right people, good things happen. And I think that extends far beyond nature conservation.”

I leave you with that thought as we welcome a new hopeful year.

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Ruby E. Carlino is a published writer and former technology analyst. In Sequim since 2018, she’s at home in the garden and brings a broad perspective to her work (rain or shine). She can be reached at nextchaptercolumn@proton.me.