BEING a wildlife enthusiast at this point of the Anthropocene can feel like desperately trying to enjoy the very best of planet Earth while it is in the process of rapidly vanishing, a feeling that intensified for me this year. In October, the 2022 Living Planet Index, an analysis of 5230 species of vertebrates, suggested that populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have, on average, declined by 69 per cent since 1970. When enjoying spring birdsong, for example, it is hard not to feel sad for how much louder and more widespread it was not that long ago.
But there is still much to discover, marvel at and love in the natural world, even as habitat loss, climate change, overexploitation and invasive species continue to damage it. So, at this special time of year, let鈥檚 give ourselves a brief pause from grief to celebrate some of the year鈥檚 good news.
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While vast numbers of species are currently under threat, the fortunes of some have turned around. In July, we heard that southern fin whales now appear to be doing well in the Antarctic, following a 1976 ban on hunting these animals in the southern hemisphere. This was followed by the news that Saiga antelopes have rebounded on the Kazakhstan steppe, after nearly being wiped out by hunting and disease.
Many new-to-science species were described in 2022. One was a water lily collected in Bolivia in 2016 that was this year confirmed as a distinct species, Victoria boliviana, and announced as the largest-known giant water lily in the world. And I enjoyed reporting on Rhinella unapensis, a toad discovered on a campus of the National University of the Peruvian Amazon by Rommel Rojas Zamora. He told me that, in the Amazon, 鈥渙ne can literally step out from one鈥檚 house and discover a new species鈥�.
There were rediscoveries too. In Colombia, the Santa Marta sabrewing 鈥� a type of hummingbird 鈥� was officially spotted for the first time in 12 years, while on an island off Papua New Guinea, the black-naped pheasant pigeon was for the first time in 140 years.
But I think the most inspiring article I read this year was about how a community-led conservation programme in Guatemala has set two decades of deforestation in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in reverse. The area had suffered great losses due to cattle ranchers and drug traffickers. To halt this, the programme granted local communities control of the forest, on the proviso that they conserve it, and researchers helped these communities to find ways to live off these forests sustainably, producing goods like allspice and gum with minimal felling of trees.
The project still has a long way to go, but not only has it achieved the remarkable feat of switching the forest from net loss into net growth, researchers say the lessons learned there can be applied in other tropical forests around the world, too.
That鈥檚 the kind of hope I want to take into the new year 鈥� one that is grounded in the reality of the huge damage we are causing the natural world, but that knows it is possible to regrow forests and restore whale populations. There is still everything to fight for.
Penny Sarchet is 麻豆传媒鈥檚 news and digital director. She is a former plant聽scientist and a lifelong birdwatcher. You can sign up to her free monthly newsletter at
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