Learning to live with — and love — bears and eagles in Colombia's cloud forest

For two decades, the Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds has restored native trees on ​​São Miguel Island to increase the food and nesting habitat available for the Azores bullfinch. As a result, the population of the bird increased enough to be downlisted from critically endangered to vulnerable.

After a conservation biologist noticed that the number of birds in her Indian village dwindled over the years, she knew she had to take action. Purnima Devi Barman started to help educate her community about the historical significance and importance of the greater adjutant storks, and formed the “Hargila Army,” a volunteer crew of 400 women who help protect the birds. Thanks to their efforts over the last 13 years, they’ve been able to increase the endangered species’ numbers from just 27 in to more than 210.

Threatened wildlife co-exists with poverty stricken communities who inhabit the Arizona-Mexico border region. Borderlands Restoration's conservation scientists are hoping to alleviate poverty while repairing the local environment by providing jobs that help preserve and renew the environment.

Two conservation organizations are helping communities in Kyrgyzstan diversify their sources of income from livestock to include beekeeping, agroecology, ecotourism, and crafts. These efforts are preventing conflicts with snow leopards to conserve the local population. And some of the money made from the program goes towards funding environmental projects chosen by the community.

A secular community of volunteers formed the NYC Plover Project to watch over a group of the in-danger shorebird species that nests in sand dunes at a local beach. Volunteers scan the nesting ground for threats with binoculars and educate beachgoers about the problem at hand.

In the North Luangwa National Park in Zambia, a conservation team worked with local communities to bring the rate of elephant poaching in the area down to zero in 2018. Poaching had surged in the Luangwa Valley in 2014, and since then the group has protected the elephants by placing the decision-making and benefit-reaping in the hands of the community members. They use financial incentives to stir the economy without depending on poaching money, work with the government to revise policies that redirect any income for the area to benefit the residents, and they patrol the park for any poachers.

In northwestern Spain, the perception of wolves is shifting from "vermin" to "tourist attraction"--a crucial conservation step for the estimated 2,000 wolves remaining in Spain. Thanks to the efforts of conservation groups, local politicians, and an education center, wolf tourism is beginning to replace wolf hunting.

The Nez Perce Tribe is installing solar panels on homes and community buildings across their reservation with the goal of producing enough energy to replace the hydroelectric dams on the Snake River responsible for the diminishing salmon and steelhead populations.

The Okanagan Nation Alliance leads a Fish in Schools program that donates fish spawn and the equipment to raise them to elementary and secondary schools near their territory. Thousands of fish raised by the students are released into local waterways during ceremonies at the end of the school year as a part of their efforts to bring salmon back to the area.

Communities in the United States are slowly replacing small culverts that alter the flow of streams and block the paths of migratory fish species with wider culverts and bridges, allowing the ecosystems to recover.