On a Honduran island, a community effort grows to protect its precious reefs

KRAPAVIS has restored 249 sacred groves in Rajasthan through a community-led model where villages share restoration costs and appoint local custodians. They've successfully reviving water sources, wells, and biodiversity while securing a 2024 Supreme Court ruling that protects these community-conserved ecosystems across India.

Through sponsorships and government investment, the Leboku festival in Ugep, Nigeria, has become a global tourist attraction that brings economic benefits to the town. The ancient festival celebrates the yam harvest with contests and performing arts.

Led by Native Hawai’ians, Kamehameha Schools owns thousands of acres of land dedicated to stewardship and conservation. The school partners with Native Hawaiian organizations and conducts eco-cultural education programs for students and members of the community to foster connections between them and the environment.

The Hattiesburg Alliance for Public Art has designated the city as a public art city, with as many as 46 public art installations across the city, including 35 murals. It intends to grow to 100 public art murals. The city hopes that the public art will attract tourists and economic development, but the primary goal is to develop and beautify communities for the people who live there. Public art raises morale and connects people to one another. It also creates a shared sense of pride in the city and rises the collective mood.

A town once plagued by a reputation of being an asbestos Superfund site as well as having been hit by the timber wars, Libby, Montana is back on the map. Lincoln County commissioner, Mark Peck of Libby, the county seat, decided to make it a priority to fix the negative connotation surrounding the town and partnered with a public relations firm to rebrand the city through the use of the community's unique story of rising from asbestos.

The Nusantra Fund provides financial support directly to community-led projects in Indonesia. The aim is to improve the livelihoods of Indigenous and local people while tackling climate change impacts and protecting biodiversity.

The community on St. Helena’s two-decade reforestation initiative is successfully revitalizing rare native species through a community-driven approach. The project began with the intention to create a public place for island residents and that sense of ownership has allowed the project to keep moving forward despite obstacles.

The demise of coral reefs has made headlines recently as conservationists face the challenge of trying to save what is left of them from global warming, ocean acidification, pollution, overfishing – to name just a few of the threats. Gardens of the Queen National Park in the Caribbean may hold some answers. From a pro-environmental government philosophy to a reduction in nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich farm runoff, there are more than a few practices that have culminated into a solution to keep Cuba's coral reef healthy.

Baltimore has dramatically reduced homicides through a multi-pronged approach involving a data-driven Group Violence Reduction Strategy, credible-messenger intervention programs, and aggressive prosecution of illegal gun possession. This has resulted in a record-low murder rate in 2026, with 60 killings recorded through August compared to roughly 220 at the same point four years prior.

The Laudato Si' Leadership Training program, a collaboration between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, uses church teachings on the environment to facilitate actions that address climate change and other socio-ecological issues in the region.