Discover the ways the planet is healing in 2025 – from helping to ocean recover to slowing extinction rates across plants and animals
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Is the world becoming a better place? For many, the answer is complicated. With climate change continuing to wreak havoc upon the planet and geopolitical turmoil spreading across nations, it can be difficult to parse through such difficult times and find much positivity.
However, in 2025, there have been numerous examples of ways the planet is becoming a better place: from strategies helping the ocean to heal against the issue of bycatch, to research facilities opening to protect citizens against malaria in East Africa.
Here are seven ways that developments and progress around the world have made a positive difference to the planet, as covered by Geographical in 2025. If you’re interested in a particular story, click on the title to find out more…
1) Helping the ocean to heal
After the Australian Fisheries Management Authority found that longline tuna fishing off Australia’s east coast was killing sea turtles in a bycatch ‘hotspot’ in the Coral Sea in the 2010s, it mandated bycatch-reduction devices across Queensland and northern prawn fisheries.
In particular, the authority authorised the use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs). These use the flow of water through the trawl net to guide turtles towards an escape hole. They feature a rigid barrier grid, attached to the net’s circumference, which diverts turtles upwards or downwards and out of the net.
WWF Australia says TEDs can reduce turtle bycatch by 99 per cent, seasnakes by five per cent, sharks by 17.7 per cent, rays by 36.3 per cent and large sponges by 85.3 per cent. A variation – the Trash and Turtle Excluder Device – reduces fish bycatch by up to 40 per cent and also removes debris from the water. In the USA, testing by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has reinforced these results, concluding earlier this year that TEDs are 97 per cent effective at keeping turtles out of shrimp trawl nets.
2) Extinction rates slowing across plant and animal groups
A new study led by scientists at the University of Arizona has shown that extinction rates in plants, arthropods and land vertebrates appear to have peaked around 100 years ago and have declined since then.
Researchers also found that past extinctions were mostly caused by invasive species on islands, rather than by today’s most significant threat to wildlife — the destruction of natural habitats.
The paper argues that claims of a current mass extinction rely on shaky assumptions that project data from past extinctions into the future, ignoring differences in the factors driving extinctions in the past, present and future.
3) Hope for hidden wildlife in the DRC
In 2025, a new co-management agreement between ICCN and Fauna & Flora is set to bolster protection for a national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The second largest country in Africa, the DRC is one of the continent’s most important nations for nature conservation, so much so that it is considered one of the world’s megadiverse nations.
Stretching for more than one million hectares, Maiko National Park is a remote yet vital haven of biodiversity in the DRC.
It is home to both rare and endemic species, including the giant pangolin, Grauer’s gorilla and one of the most elusive animals on the planet – the okapi.
As well as being a haven for wildlife, Maiko National Park also acts as a carbon sink with its expansive forests, helping to mitigate global warming by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
4) White-tailed eagles making a UK comeback
White-tailed eagles, once extinct in the UK, are now soaring again across British skies thanks to one of the nation’s greatest conservation success stories. Wiped out by the early 20th century through persecution and habitat loss, the species was reintroduced to Scotland in 1975 through a pioneering partnership between the RSPB and NatureScot
Beginning with a small group of young birds on the Isle of Rum, the project has grown into a remarkable 50-year recovery effort, with around 200 breeding pairs now thriving across the Highlands and islands — and more recently spreading into England through reintroductions on the Isle of Wight.
5) ‘Superhighways’ created to protect migrating whales
This year, a breakthrough for marine conservation was made through a global coalition led by WWF, known as BlueCorridors.org. This cutting-edge digital platform maps whale migration routes, or ‘blue corridors’ for the first time, using over 30 years of tracking data.
By layering this with information on marine threats and conservation zones, the platform offers governments, researchers, and NGOs an unprecedented tool to safeguard these vital migratory paths.
6) East Africa is fighting back against malaria
A new mosquito production and research facility opened in East Africa in 2025 – the first of its kind in the region – to fight against malaria. The facility will serve as the new hub for the Djibouti Friendly Mosquito Program, enabling releases of ‘Friendly’ male mosquitoes to suppress wild Anopheles stephensi populations, an invasive urban mosquito in Djibouti City and surrounding areas.
To do this, it is hoped the newly-released males – which have been genetically engineered and are non-biting – will mate with local females, allowing populations of the dangerous Anopheels stephensi mosquito to be reduced in turn.
The ‘Friendly’ mosquitoes carry a gene which kills female offspring before they reach maturity. Such a gene is vital, as only female mosquitoes bite and are able to transmit malaria and other viral diseases.
7) Copenhagen as a leading green city
Copenhagen has transformed itself into the world’s leading green city through a blend of innovation, community action and long-term environmental planning. Facing rising sea levels, the Danish capital has turned climate awareness into a public conversation — even installing benches raised to future flood heights as reminders of what’s at stake. Now on track to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital, Copenhagen champions clean transport, renewable energy and rewilded urban spaces.
Electric ferries, zero-carbon buses and almost 400km of cycle paths make sustainable travel effortless, while schemes such as Green Kayak encourage residents to collect rubbish from waterways in exchange for free paddling time.
