North & Central America

Indigenous person from Kogui people of Colombia

New online tool is first to track funding to Indigenous, local, and Afro-descendant communities

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The Path to Scale dashboard, developed in a partnership between the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and the Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN), provides information on funding from 133 donors since 2011 based on publicly available information. According to the developers, this publicly accessible dashboard will help donors, NGOs and rights holders identify critical funding gaps and opportunities in global efforts to secure communities’ rights.

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Water flowing from faucet

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announces first-ever national regulations for “forever chemicals” in drinking water

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Commonly called “forever chemicals,” PFAS are synthetic chemicals found nearly everywhere — in air, water, and soil — and can take thousands of years to break down in the environment.

The EPA has stated there is no safe level of exposure to PFAS without risk of health impacts, but now it will require that public water utilities test for six different types of PFAS chemicals to reduce exposure in drinking water. The new standards will reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people, according to the EPA, and prevent thousands of deaths and illnesses.

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Texas flag

Solar generates more power than coal in Texas for first time ever

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Solar generation in Texas was 3.26 terawatt hours (TWh) in the month of March, beating the 2.96 TWh sent out by coal-fired generators. It’s the first time solar has beaten coal over a whole month in Texas, the largest user of coal for power generation of any state in the U.S. The share of coal generation in Texas is now declining rapidly, from 40% more than a decade ago and 30% in 2017 to 13.9% in 2023.

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Leopard shark / Zebra shark

Rewilding program ships eggs around the world to restore Raja Ampat zebra sharks

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The Shark Reef Aquarium on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada has been sending zebra shark eggs to Indonesia’s Raja Ampat. Researchers hope to release 500 zebra sharks into the wild within 10 years in an effort to support a large, genetically diverse breeding population.
A survey estimated the zebra shark had a population of 20 spread throughout the Raja Ampat archipelago, making the animal functionally extinct in the region.

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Cutting cannabis plant

Massachusetts becomes first U.S. state to blanket pardon low-level marijuana charges

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Gov. Maura Healey’s first-in-the-nation plan to issue a blanket pardon for simple marijuana possession was met with the unanimous approval of the Governor’s Council. According to Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, who chairs the Governor’s Council, the body’s vote means that anyone charged with a misdemeanor crime of marijuana possession before March 13 of this year is cleared of that crime with immediate effect.

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Contraceptives

Canada to make contraception for women free

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The government will pay for the most widely used methods to avoid pregnancy, such as IUDs, contraceptive pills, hormonal implants or the day after pill, for the nine million Canadian women of reproductive age, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at a press conference. “Women should be free to choose the contraceptives they need without cost getting in the way. So, we’re making contraceptives free,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

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Spotted owl

Biden administration restores threatened species protections in the U.S. dropped by Trump

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Among the changes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for animals and plants newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft specific plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines in the Rocky Mountains, alligator snapping turtles in the Southeast and spotted owls in California.

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Person repairing smart phone

Oregon governor signs nation’s first right-to-repair bill that bans parts pairing

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The law, like those passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, will require many manufacturers to provide the same parts, tools, and documentation to individuals and repair shops that they provide to their own repair teams. But Oregon’s bill goes further, preventing companies from implementing schemes that require parts to be verified through encrypted software checks before they will function.

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U.N. building with national flags in foreground

U.N. General Assembly adopts landmark resolution on artificial intelligence

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The Assembly called on all Member States and stakeholders “to refrain from or cease the use of artificial intelligence systems that are impossible to operate in compliance with international human rights law or that pose undue risks to the enjoyment of human rights.” The text was “co-sponsored” or backed by more than 120 other Member States. It represents the first time the Assembly has adopted a resolution on regulating the emerging field.

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Redwoods with sun shining through

Yurok Tribe becomes the first to manage land with U.S. National Park Service

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California’s Yurok Tribe, which had 90% of its territory taken from it during the gold rush of the mid-1800s, will be getting a slice of its land back to serve as a new gateway to Redwood national and state parks visited by 1 million people a year. The Yurok will be the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed by the tribe, Redwood national and state parks, and the non-profit Save the Redwoods League.

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