Positive Climate News - November 2025

This month's collection of positive climate news stories highlight the women training to be solar technicians in Zanzibar, how rewilding is helping soldiers to heal in Ukraine, and a clean energy breakthrough at the National University of Singapore.

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1. Wildlife Trust claims victory in dredging battle

The Sussex Wildlife Trust is celebrating victory in a legal battle over planned dredging off the coast of the county. The Trust had challenged a decision by the Marine Management Organisation to allow Brighton Marina to dispose of material in the Beachy Head West Marine Conservation Zone. Earlier this month, the Trust heard its challenge in the High Court had been successful.

Find out more on the BBC website. 

2. Training women to be solar technicians

Barefoot College International, a global non-profit, selects middle-aged women, most with little or no formal education, from villages without electricity and trains them over six months to become solar power technicians.

So far in Zanzibar, the scheme has brought solar power to 1,845 homes, helping bring light to rural communities and providing jobs for local women. “We want to train women who become change makers,” said Brenda Geofrey, the director of Barefoot College International Zanzibar.

Find out more on the Euronews website.

3. Project aims to restore nature at rural sites

A new nature recovery project is set to begin at four sites in the Shropshire Hills. The Rescuing Rocks and Overgrown Relics scheme will focus on habitat restoration at former mining and quarrying locations, including Poles Coppice in Pontesbury, Snailbeach and the Bog.

The work will include scrub management and coppicing to expose rocky habitats that support species like slowworms, grayling butterflies and bird's-foot-trefoil.

Find out more on the BBC website.

4. Nature reserve uses bird protection film on windows

The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in Gloucestershire is among the first UK nature reserve to use glass protection technology to tackle a major cause of bird deaths - window collisions. They have installed a protection window film that birds can detect, stopping them from crashing into its windows.

Annually, an estimated 100 million birds crash into windows in the UK, according to the British Trust for Ornithology. The technology uses UV active film, making windows detectable to birds, while remaining almost clear to humans.

Find out more on the BBC website.

5. How rewilding is helping Ukraine’s soldiers heal

Rewilding Ukraine launched its Nature for Veterans initiative to help support soldiers experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and severe anxiety by offering them and their families a chance to heal in the revitalised landscapes of the Ukrainian Danube Delta.

Since Russia’s invasion, Rewilding Ukraine has restored 13,500 hectares of wetlands and unforested grassland in the Danube Delta and adjacent Tarutino Steppe.

Find out more on the Euronews website.

6. Data centre in the shed reduces couple’s energy bills 

An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed.

Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers.

Find out more on the BBC website.

7. Singaporean scientists turn raindrops into electricity

According to researchers at the National University of Singapore, rainy weather could one day be generating electricity as they have demonstrated, in a clean energy breakthrough, that droplets falling through a tube can light up 12 LEDs.

Find out more on the Travel Tomorrow website.

8. Birds begin to recover after French neonicotinoid ban

Insect-eating bird populations in France appear to be making a tentative recovery after a ban on bee-harming pesticides. By 2022, four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, researchers observed that France’s population of insect-eating birds had increased by 2%-3%. These included blackbirds, blackcaps and chaffinches, which feed on insects as adults and as chicks.

Find out more on The Guardian website.

9. Volunteers clear sour fig to protect sand dunes

A 15-strong team from Guernsey Conservation Volunteers joined the Alderney Wildlife Trust to help restore sand dunes in Alderney by removing sour fig. The volunteers removed an estimated 13m-cubed of the heavy fast-spreading invasive plant which carpets and weakens marram grass if left unchecked.

Find out more on the BBC website.

10. The man single-handedly clearing trash from Miami’s mangroves

Andrew Otazo has collected and removed more than 17 tons of rubbish, mostly from the islands around Biscayne Bay, Miami. Every piece of garbage that Otazo removes from the mangroves reclaims space for what should be there: bird nesting grounds and fish nurseries. 

He is on a quest to clear as much of that space as he can and to persuade his fellow Floridians to tell their elected officials to work to cut down on plastic pollution and update outdated waste systems that carry rubbish from the streets into the ocean.

Find out more on The Washington Post website.

By Eveline Vouillemin ©