10 Good Things Most People Missed, Like a Whole Region of Asia Free of a Blinding Eye Disease

On Sept. 3, 2026, the World Health Organization confirmed that Timor-Leste has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. It was the last country in WHO’s South-East Asia Region where the disease was suspected, so now no country there has it as a public health threat.

Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness: repeated infections scar the inside of the eyelid. A 2025 survey of young children in all 13 of Timor-Leste’s municipalities found no transmission that needed treatment. It is the 33rd country in the world to reach this goal.

On Aug. 29, 2026, Gabon, The Nature Conservancy and partners launched Gabon Infini, a plan to raise up to $200 million over the next decade. It provides for 3.7 million hectares, about 14,300 square miles, of new protected areas on land and better management of about 3.8 million hectares already protected.

Gabon is home to more than half of the world’s remaining forest elephants and a quarter of the surviving lowland gorillas. An independent trust fund will manage and pay out the money.

At Halnaker Hill Farm in West Sussex, England, 330 acres had been farmed for wheat for 40 years. After the last harvest in 2024, the fields were sown with a wildflower mix, and new hedgerows, a patch of woodland and three ponds followed.

This summer, surveys counted 5,290 butterflies on the former wheat fields, including rare small blues and dingy skippers that had never been recorded there. “The speed has amazed me, from a sterile landscape to one brimming with butterflies,” ecologist Neil Hulme told the Guardian in October.

By the 1950s, Arkansas, once called the Bear State, was down to an estimated 40 to 50 black bears. In the 1960s, officials trucked in more than 250 bears from Minnesota and Manitoba, Canada. Today, the state wildlife agency estimates there are around 5,000 black bears in Arkansas, Tennessee Lookout reported in August.

Bears are now turning up in new places. On July 4, one was confirmed next to a cornfield in West Tennessee. “That’s just their historical range, and they’re going to reclaim it,” said Dan Gibbs, black bear coordinator at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

In August, Zion National Park in Utah launched a free lending program for an all-terrain wheelchair, so visitors with disabilities, mobility problems or injuries can reach more of its trails. A donor paid for the chair through a nonprofit, and according to its maker, Zion is the first US national park to own such equipment for public use; at other parks it belongs to nonprofits.

“We’re excited to announce the launch of a new all-terrain wheelchair lending program designed to expand trail access for visitors with disabilities, mobility challenges, or injuries.”

On July 9, 2026, the IUCN moved Australia’s numbat from Endangered to Near Threatened on its Red List. The numbat is a small, striped marsupial that eats termites. By the late 1970s, only about 300 were left, mostly because of introduced foxes and cats.

Conservationists baited and removed foxes and cats from some areas and built predator-proof fenced sanctuaries. Numbers have grown to about 2,000 to 3,000. Under Australian law, the numbat is still listed as Endangered.

In September, about 11,000 acres of ancestral homeland around the Penobscot River in Maine were returned to the Penobscot Nation, Maine Public reported. It is the first phase of a project to give back around 30,000 acres just south of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

The Trust for Public Land bought the land from timber companies more than three years ago, and the rest will be handed over once another $12 million is raised. The tribe plans to restore habitat along the waterways.

On Oct. 3, Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry and the group that runs the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary announced that two of its rhinos are pregnant: Ratu, who is expecting her fourth calf, and her daughter Delilah, expecting her second. Both calves are due around May 2027.

Only a few dozen Sumatran rhinos are left in the wild. If Ratu’s calf arrives healthy, she will be the first known Sumatran rhino to have four calves, Mongabay reported.

On Sept. 15, local officials and cyclists held a ribbon cutting at Depot Park in Tower, Minnesota, to celebrate the completion of the Mesabi Trail, at 165 miles the longest paved bike trail in the state. It runs across the Iron Range from Grand Rapids to Ely, past old mine pits and through forests, wetlands and 28 towns.

The last piece, 6.5 miles between Embarrass and Tower, was paved this fall. About 285,000 people used the trail in 2025, and officials expect a record this year.

On Aug. 24, 2026, Mozambique created the 9,341-hectare, or 23,082-acre, Mount Mabu Community Conservation Area and gave stewardship to the local communities that have kept the forest standing. Mabu holds the largest continuous block of mid-altitude forest left in southern Africa.

Scientists have recorded more than 200 kinds of butterflies there and, since 2005, more than 30 new species, including frogs, chameleons and bats. Every October and November, butterflies gather on the 1,700-meter summit.