Top positive environmental stories from 2020: Species evade extinction, more protected areas, monitoring tech improves
Interest in renewable energy surged, and multiple Indigenous women leaders got some long-overdue credit and recognition in 2020.
Jan 07, 2021 18:45:36 IST
All told, this was a pretty bleak year. The COVID-19 pandemic brought tragedy and confusion; fires razed parts of Australia, the Amazon, and the Western U.S.; and the world is still barreling headlong into the sixth mass extinction of species. But positive stories emerged. Species were brought back from the edge of extinction; interest in renewable energy surged; environmental monitoring technology improved; new protected areas were created; and a few Indigenous women leaders got some long-overdue credit and recognition.
Nazareth Cabrera fights for Colombia’s Indigenous Uitoto with the strength of her words 17 December, 2020 - 20:10
Nazareth Cabrera is like a manicurist, they say. Everything that is bitter, she sweetens and makes good; what is dark, she makes light. This is how she is described among her people here in the Uitoto de Mesay Indigenous community in Araracuara, in Colombia’s Amazonian department of Caquetá. Cabrera is known for defending her people and their land from mining threats, from harassment by illegal armed groups, and from outsiders who seek to impose themselves on the community. Another thing that they say of her: that at age 52, she is not afraid of anything, and that her strength is possessed by few. It shows. The Uitoto people live in the Andoque de Aduche reservation, which they share with the Andoque, Muinane and Nonuya nations. According to legend, it is sacred land. But that did not prevent the governor of the reservation, Milciades Andoque, from asking the Nat
Nazareth Cabrera is like a manicuera they say, a sacred drink of the Indigenous Uitoto people that is obtained from the sweet yucca or fareka. Everything that is bitter, she…
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