Thread by @DrAlakbarov

[Thread]

Some good news stories you probably didn’t hear about this year:

* 7 eggs from the world's last two remaining Northern White Rhino have been successfully fertilized. This may save the species.

* Poverty in the United States reached its lowest rate since 2007

* Global suicide rate has dropped by 38% from its peak in 1994, saving over 4 million lives

* The population of humpback whales in the South Atlantic region now number 24,900 — almost 93% of their population size before they were hunted to the brink of extinction

* China began preparations for the creation of the largest national park in the country’s history, covering an area of 27,134 km², and home to more than 1,200 wild giant pandas.

* The city of Seoul shut down all its remaining dog butcheries

* The Netherlands became the first country in the world to eliminate all stray dogs – not by euthanasia, but through education, free veterinary care and re-homing.

* Ethiopia smashed the world record for tree planting. Millions of Ethiopians planted 353 mln trees in 12 hours.

* The indigenous Waorani community of Ecuador won a landmark case against oil companies this year, protecting 180,000 hectares of their land against exploitation

* China's tree stock rose by 4.56 billion m³ between 2005 and 2018, deserts are shrinking by 2,400 km² a year

* The United States passed a new law outlawing animal cruelty, China issued guidelines stating that from 2020 non-animal testing will be the preferred method for cosmetic products, and in Australia, cosmetics companies were banned from using data derived from animal testing.

* Dolphins are breeding in the Potomac River in Washington for the first time since the 1880s, whale populations are exploding off the shores of New York, and 100 seal pups have been born on the shores of the Thames, 60 years after the river was declared 'biologically dead.'

* In Kenya, poaching rates have dropped by 85% for rhinos and 78% for elephants in the last five years, in South Africa, the number of rhinos killed by poachers fell by 25%

* Belize doubled the size of ocean reserves around the world’s second largest barrier reef.

* In Mozambique, one of Africa’s largest wildlife reserves went an entire year without losing a single elephant.

* For the first time since 1870, herds of bison are roaming the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. 1,200 bison now have 80,000 acres to graze.

* India reported that its population of tigers has risen by over a third since 2014

* Since 1990, France’s forest areas have increased by 7%, in Nepal, satellite images revealed that forests expanded from 26% to 45%

* Canada banned the trade, possession, capture and breeding of whales, dolphins and porpoises, passed a Fisheries Act

* Algeria and Argentina officially eliminated malaria this year. Malaria infections in Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam dropped by 76%.

* Global HIV-related deaths have fallen to 770,000
* Senegal became the first African country to begin providing free treatment for women with breast or cervical cancer
* Mali announced it would begin providing free healthcare for pregnant women and children under five

* In the biggest breakthrough for cystic fibrosis in decades, a new drug that targets the genetic roots of the disease was approved by the FDA.
* The Philippines passed a Universal Health Care Act, entitling all of its 107 mln citizens to health insurance and medical treatment

* Cigarette smoking among US adults has reached an all-time low of 13.7%
* More people are surviving cancer in Australia than ever before. Since 1989, the mortality rate has dropped by 32% for men and by 21% for women.

* Cancer mortality rates fell by 18% in Argentina, 26% in Chile, 14% in Colombia, 17% in Mexico and 13% in Venezuela
* Malawi eliminated the world’s most common infectious eye disease, trachoma, the second African country to do so after Ghana.

* Stroke rates for US adults over the age of 65 have decreased by one third each decade for the last 30 years
* In Rwanda, 95% of babies currently receive vaccinations for rubella, measles and polio, and it's also on track to be the first country to eliminate cervical cancer.

* Heart disease rates in the UK are on the decline - it's still the leading cause of mortality, but deaths have decreased by almost half since 2005
* Type 3 polio officially became the second species of poliovirus to be eliminated in 2019. Only Type 1 now remains in 2 countries.

* Extreme poverty around the world fell from 36% in 1990 to 8.6% in 2018.
* China now has equal numbers of girls and boys in primary and high school, and more than half of university students are women, up from less than a quarter in 1978.

* India's extraordinary sanitation drive: In the last five years, 90 million toilets have been built, 93% of households now have access, and 500 million people have stopped defecating in the open.
* In the last 20 years, children's lives have improved in 173 out of 176 countries

* 30,000 children in Cambodia have been rescued from hard labour in the past five years and 180,000 prevented from being child workers.
* India halved its poverty rate in the past 30 years, increased life expectancy at birth by 11.6 years

* Officials in Nepal reported that 8.8 million people have gained access to electricity since 2010. Nepal was also declared an open defecation free country in 2019. Eight years ago, nine million people did not have access to clean sanitation facilities.

* 19 African countries reached gender parity (equal numbers of boys and girls) in primary education in the past decade.
* Tolerance towards LGBTQIA+ people has risen in almost every region of the world in the last decade

* The number of people killed in wars around the world reached its lowest level in seven years, and battle fatalities have fallen by 43% since 2014.
* Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalize same sex marriage.

* Indonesia lifted the minimum legal age for marriage from 16 to 19, Mozambique made child marriage punishable by 12 years in prison
* California banned the operation of private prisons – finally removing the profit motive from incarceration

* Saudi Arabia granted women the right to travel overseas, register births, marriage & divorce, receive family documents be eligible as guardians to minors, and congregate in the same places as men.

* Northern Ireland officially legalised the right of women to decide what to do with their own bodies, and the right of people to love and marry anyone they choose.
* Five countries – France, Kosovo, South Africa, Georgia and Scotland - banned corporal punishment

* The World Health Organisation removed 'gender identity disorder' from its list of mental illnesses.
* Sudan's dictatorship was overthrown after months of protests, its leaders signed a landmark deal for transition to civilian government.

* India and Pakistan opened a peace corridor on their border, allowing Sikhs to visit their second holiest site, the shrines dedicated to Guru Nanak, for the first time in 72 years.
* Botswana decriminalized homosexuality, overturning a colonial-era law

* Kenya's High Court ruled that rape survivors have the right to an abortion
* Global executions fell by almost a third last year, reaching their lowest figure in at least a decade.
* Electricity generation from coal power stations fell by around 3% this year

* Four years after it won the dubious title of the world’s dirtiest city, air pollution in Delhi has dropped by 25%. In Beijing, air pollutants fell to their lowest level ever recorded, in Madrid a ban on vehicles in the city centre reduced levels of nitric oxide by 38%

* New Zealand passed a bill to reach zero carbon by 2050, committed to planting a billion trees in the next decade
* Chile reached its 2025 clean energy targets six years ahead of schedule

* The EU, Thailand and Canada announced that plastic cutlery, plates, straws, cotton buds, balloons, food containers and polystyrene cups would no longer be allowed by 2021

* Colombian women with visual impairments trained to detect breast cancer are outperforming doctors
* The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, according to NASA
* Renewable energy sources now account for around a third of all global power capacity

* Galapagos iguana makes return to the island almost 200 years after Charlese Darwin recorded them there
* American scientists managed to convert all blood types to the universal type O that is safe for all patients to recieve

* Netherlands have built 5 artificial islands to preserve wildlife. In the first 2 years 30,000 birds and 127 kinds of plants have been reintroduced
* Scientist in Mexico created fake plastic from cactus juice that biodegrades in a month and is safe to ingest

* A seven-mile long "bee corridor" is being planted in a bid to boost the number of pollinating insects in London
* Peru has committed to ending palm oil-driven deforestation by 2021
* Youtube has banned white supremacist content, and thousands of hate speech channels

* South Korea recycles 95% of its food waste thanks to smart bins and special biodegradable bags
* A record-breaking 4,855 people queued for hours to see if they were a match for a boy with a rare cancer in London

* Scientists found an edible mushroom that eats plastic, and it could clean our landfills
* Over 1,500 suicides and 15,000 suicide attempts are reported annually in Sweden. In order to tackle this, local authorities created world’s first mental health ambulance

* A German circus has become the first in the world to use holograms instead of real animals in its acts
* Piplantri village's residents in India, celebrate every time a girl is born with a unique ritual of planting 111 fruit trees.

* Scientists in Finland have developed what they believe is the world's first vaccine to protect honeybees against disease. The insects are vital as they help fertilise three out of four crops around the world

* A robot called LarvalBot delivering coral babies to the Great Barrier Reef
* In San Francisco, 'Cuddle Club' unites senior people and senior dogs who need companionship, exercise and affection.
* Iceland now the first country to enforce equal pay for women and men.

* Utrecht in the Netherlands has redesigned over 300 bus stops to feature "green roofs", which aim to provide a habitat for bees in the city.
* California limits pet store sales of cats, dogs and rabbits to rescue or shelter animals only.

* A daytime disco for over-65s in the Korean capital Seoul is giving seniors a new lease of life.

The event is the first of its kind organised by the local government and aims to tackle loneliness and dementia in the rapidly ageing country.

* In Rome you can buy a subway ticket by recycling plastic bottles
* For centuries, rice farmers in Asia have used ducks as a natural alternative to pesticides. So Japanese scientists created robot ducks

* A UK patient's HIV has become "undetectable" following a stem cell transplant - in only the second case of its kind
* A Thailand supermarket came up with a genius way to reduce plastic packaging: wrap its produce in banana leaves instead.

* In the US, sea turtles are making a huge comeback, thanks to the Endangered Species Act
* Norway’s parliament has delivered a significant blow to the country’s huge oil industry after withdrawing support for explorative drilling off the Lofoten islands in the Arctic

* Jadav Payeng is better known as the Forest Man of India. He earned this name by spending 30 years of his life planting trees, creating a real man-made forest of 550 hectares. Thanks to this reforestation, wildlife has returned to the area. Incredibly, he did it all by himself.

So if you feel ever sad or depressed, read this thread. I hope it brings you good vibes. Good night.