Photo: Yux Xiang / Unsplash (CC0)
From Ireland’s basic income for artists to environmental progress in China and the women protecting snow leopards in India: here’s our recap of the most important constructive news and stories from the past month.
New data show 499 homicides were recorded by police in the 12 months to September 2025, a drop of 7% year on year from 539: the lowest overall homicide figures since records were first recorded in 2003. Homicide involving a knife or sharp instrument in England and Wales has fallen by 23%, and knife crime has also fallen, dropping by 9%.
Source: The Guardian
New data suggests that theft in England and Wales has fallen sharply in recent decades. Vehicle-related thefts peaked in 1995 at about 4.3 million incidents – including car thefts, break-ins and stolen parts like radios – while burglaries also peaked in the mid-1990s.
Source: Our World In Data
After a successful pilot that recouped more than its net cost, Ireland is creating a scheme that will give artists a weekly income in the hope of reducing their need for alternative work and boosting their creativity. The Basic Income for the Arts initiative will provide €325 (£283) a week to 2,000 eligible artists based in the Republic of Ireland in three-year cycles.
Source: The Guardian
According to new data levels of PM2.5 – small particulate that can enter the lungs and bloodstream – fell 41% nationwide in the decade since 2014, with levels of PM2.5 dropping by 69.8% in Beijing alone thanks to a ten-point action plan.
Source: France 24
The Yangtze River in China, in ecological decline for 70 years, is showing signs of recovery thanks to a sweeping fishing ban that has included finding alternate employment for fishermen. One veteran biologist calls it the most positive freshwater conservation story in the world of the last 20 years.
Source: The Guardian
Environmentalists have long expressed concern with the global trade in plastic waste that has allowed wealthier countries to pass on a plastic problem to countries with less waste regulation. The trade began to drop in 2018 when China banned waste importation, and now the trade is mainly between wealthy countries with strong regulations.
Source: Our World in Data
Rewilding Europe’s project, based in a forest mountain range in southeastern France, concentrates on creating an environment where different species can build healthy populations, including wild horses, alpine ibex, roe deer, wolves, Eurasian lynx and vultures. The NGO will work alongside private locals and landowners to prove that predators such as wolves can in fact benefit local ecosystems.
Source: Mongabay
The protections span almost one million hectares of the Amazon lowlands and Andean highlands, and are intended to improve wildlife migration as well as forest-based economies for local families. The four new areas are also designed to act as corridors between Madidi National Park and Cotapata National Park.
Source: Mongabay
With 10 human cases reported worldwide in 2025, Guinea worm is close to being the second disease eradicated in history, following smallpox. For a disease to be declared eradicated, every country in the world must be certified free of human and animal infections, even in those where transmission has never been known to occur.
Source: Euronews
More than 158 million of India’s 193.6 million rural households – roughly 81.56% – had access to tap water as of 26th January. Rural tap water coverage has increased dramatically since August 2019, when only 32.3 million households (16.72%) had connections. Since then, an additional 125.5 million rural households have been connected.
Source: The Print India
Thanks to a campaign led by two students, every public high school in Illinois will be required to include instruction on climate change and its impacts and causes for grades nine through 12.
Source: Good Good Good
The initiative’s goal is to protect the mental health of children and young people online, and is centred around an EU-wide app where victims of cyberbullying can easily get help. It also involves the coordination of national approaches to tackle harmful behaviour online, as well as prevention measures.
Source: EU Reporter
Rammed earth blocks made from compacted earth have been used in construction for millennia. Lately, their sustainability and natural insulating and cooling properties are attracting the attention of architects. The blocks can be made with minimal carbon impact and can simply return to the soil at demolition
Source: The Guardian
Seattle’s smaller multi-apartment houses with a single staircase built on limited-space lots have become a model for other US cities seeking a solution to housing shortages. Known as the ‘Seattle Special’, it has demonstrated success at balancing fire safety, residents’ concerns over high-rises and the huge need for more housing.
Source: Next City
Across the UK, community ownership is gaining momentum as a way to protect vital infrastructure and reinvest profits locally. As major retailers pull back and public services shrink, local residents are increasingly stepping in to rescue and run the assets their areas depend on: from ferry services to shopping centres.
Source: Positive News
Once declared biologically dead in 1969, the river is now drawing fish and other aquatic species back to its waters. This month, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority released its 2025 findings, documenting the presence of more than 20 different fish species in the river.
Source: National Observer
Restoration projects in Brazil have grown by more than 160% since 2021, with seed-planting standing as cost-effective restoration alternative.
More than 700 seed gatherers in the Xingu Seeds Network are currently working to help recover forests and savannas across Mato Grosso, a major agricultural state.
Source: Context
After the Klamath River dam removal project, salmon started to return and the river to heal. The following summer, Oregon Field Guide documented in video how 25 indigenous teens did what their people have not done since forcible removal of the tribes for dam construction: kayaked 30 miles from the mouth of the river to the sea.
Source: Oregon Public Broadcasting
Ramón Pucha and his family have spent years recreating their own piece of jungle with rescued species on a 32-hectare farm known as El Picaflor in the Indigenous Quichua community of Alto Ila, 128 km southeast of the capital, Quito. The family even shares the fruits of their labor, selling or gifting a percentage of the plants to neighbours committed to forest regeneration.
Source: Euronews
Rouble Nagi has established over 800 learning centres across India thanks to her Rouble Nagi Art Foundation, giving structured education for children who have never attended school. She also creates large-scale murals that teach literacy, science, maths, history, and other subjects.
Source: AP News
In India, chess is becoming more than a competitive sport or elite pursuit that promises prize money and social media fame. Across the country, local clubs and districts are expanding access to the game, using it as a tool for education and a pathway out of poverty for the communities they serve.
Source: Reasons To Be Cheerful
Long seen as a threat for preying on livestock, the animal’s image is beginning to change in Kibber and nearby villages, where residents are increasingly recognising its role in the fragile mountain ecosystem. Now, nearly a dozen local women are now working with the Himachal Pradesh forest department and conservation groups to monitor the species.
Source: BBC News
In the high Peruvian Andes, wildcats were once hunted as threats to livestock and survival. That mindset is now changing: thanks to women-led conservation efforts that mix camera traps, traditional weaving, and community organising, human neighbours are learning to coexist with wildlife.
Source: Mongabay
A house where imprisoned mothers could have child visits became home to a new programme where moms babies can live with their infants. Prison officers say that in the 5 years it has been open, no released mothers have returned to jail, although recidivism is 40% in South Dakota overall.
Source: South Dakota Searchlight
The show aims to help inmates along the path of rehabilitation by showcasing their talents, as well as acting as a form of music therapy by giving the women a chance to express themselves through art.
Source: Africa News
