Hi everyone, Gus and Tane here, with our traditional end of year good news list. We know this usually comes out earlier in December; in our defense it's not every day one of you ends up in a brawl with a bacteria that tries to eat your heart and your brain. Thanks to modern medicine, we've managed to get back on track, squeaking in here just before the clock strikes midnight.
Each year, the process of putting this list together surprises us, and 2021 was no exception. Even though we know all of these stories intimately, having chosen each of them for this newsletter, there's something about seeing them all together that just feels very different, and makes you realise how unbalanced both mainstream and social media have become. If forced to choose, we'd say our favourites are the stories about global landmine clearances, the new ocean protected areas in the Atlantic and Pacific and of course, the moon bears rescue in China.
Before we get into it, we wanted to thank all of our paying subscribers for helping us give away just over A$45,000 to charity this year. As a result of their generosity, we sent tracking and camping equipment to wildlife rangers in Cameroon, tablets to young women in Mexico, handheld ultrasound devices to healthcare workers in Yemen, and funded sex education videos for children and teenagers in Iran.
Our members helped us kit out a new computer room for kids with special needs in Tanzania, buy braces for kids with clubfoot in the Philippines, and send 60 Kindles to a boarding school of Afghan girls who had to flee to Rwanda. None of that would have happened without them. We're so grateful to this community of readers for enabling us not just to report good news, but actually make it happen.
If you'd like to join us, and play a tiny part in making the world a better place, you can become a member by clicking the giant pink button (one third of your subscriber fee goes to charity)
Become a paid subscriberAlright, without further ado, we're thrilled to share with you...
Enjoy the list, please feel free to forward to anyone you think might need a boost, and we'll see you in 2022.
Much love,
Gus and Tane
