Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Let us know what you think at [email protected].
Amazonian guardians
Last year, Reasons to be Cheerful published a great story by Gabriela Barzallo about Indigenous guardians embracing a “tech boom” to fight illegal logging in the Amazon. So naturally, we were intrigued by Gabriela’s latest for the BBC: a story that Contributing Editor Peter Yeung shared with our team this week about an all-female patrol guarding Ecuador’s rainforest.
Peter says:
This is a cool story about how a team of 35 Indigenous women from the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador have formed a patrol group to fight against illegal miners. They monitor the region once a month, venturing along the riverbanks and deep into the surrounding forests, equipped with camera traps and drones.
Building something new
Traverse City, Michigan, is facing an increasingly common problem: Its workforce can’t afford to live there. But a new affordable housing development there has an unusual origin story: It’s a co-op, and its construction was crowdfunded by members of the community, according to a New York Times story that caught Executive Editor Will Doig’s attention this week.
Will says:
At first the idea of crowdsourcing affordable housing seemed grim to me, but turns out it’s a pretty good way to build it, not to mention a decent investment opportunity.
What else we’re reading
🧮 To engage students in math, educators try connecting it to their culture — shared by Editorial Director Rebecca Worby from the Hechinger Report
📊 How our sense of economic reality is being distorted — shared by RTBC founder David Byrne from the Financial Times
🐳 A whale makes a comeback off Argentina’s coast 100 years after vanishing — shared by Rebecca Worby from Reuters
Elsewhere in our channels…
The New York Times and other publications recently covered fascinating new developments in scientists’ understanding of sperm whale language.
![Sperm whale swimming](https://reasonstobecheerful.world/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2-spermwhale000-Photo-Amanda-Cotton-scaled.jpg)
RTBC Contributing Editor Michaela Haas was ahead of the game: She wrote a great story for us about this — complete with a playlist of clicks and buzzes — back in April. In case you missed it, check out Michaela’s story about sperm whale communication.