With the holiday season just around the corner, a lot of us are thinking about what we’re grateful for. For some of us, this year seems a bit harder to find things to be thankful for than in the past. After all, 2014 has been littered with some pretty negative headlines – outbreaks, terrorism, global warming, economic uncertainty – and it can be hard to find the good news hidden among all the bad headlines. Well we’ve done the legwork to find a few things for the conservation-minded among us to give thanks for, and as it turns out, it’s been a pretty good year for nature, you may just not have realized it yet.

1.) Deforestation is on the Decline

Deforestation is a big deal when it comes to conservation of almost any kind. It’s become a buzz-word in popular media, most species loss can be attributed to it in one form or another, and scientists have attributed major climate change significance to the decline of forests globally. It’s a notoriously complicated issue to address too. Since forests tend not to conform to national or international boundaries and a lot of business and human consumption depends on the use of wood, the sheer number of people and competing interests at work on any conservation effort can be pretty intimidating. And this doesn’t even begin to address policy issues like what species of trees to plant or how to incentivize good behavior from businesses.

(But… I thought you promised us good news)

So now that we’ve established how hard it can be to address deforestation, here’s the good news: Thanks to some pretty inspired cooperation in places like South America, tropical deforestation, which used to claim 40 million acres of forest annually, is down nearly 20 percent. That’s a tough statistic to grasp, so let’s convert that into “Thanksgiving units”. Today, there are 6 million more football fields worth of rainforest on the planet than there were twenty years ago. And those trees are able to process enough carbon dioxide to fill more than 16,000 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons every day for a year.

(A particularly creepy thought when you remember some of the old-timey balloons they used to use)

A lot of this progress is thanks to countries like Brazil, which have pressured businesses and the government to make changes to protect the rainforest. By convincing local beef and soy industries to agree to a moratorium on cutting down trees and successful initiatives to replant native trees, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has dropped by 70 percent in 9 years. And the Amazon isn’t the only good news south of the border…

2.) Sea Turtles are on the Rise in Latin America

Sea turtles have existed on this planet, pretty much unchanged, since before the dinosaurs. They’ve survived several extinction events and are, historically speaking, one of the most durable designs that Mother Nature has ever produced. That makes it pretty impressive, in a very dark way, that fisheries, poachers and black-market sales have pushed many species of Sea Turtles toward near-extinction.

(These guys outlasted the Dinosaurs though sheer beauty)

But this year marks some notable victories for sea turtles and their supporters. Fifty years since waning turtle populations first got national attention, scientists in Costa Rica announced this year that the once struggling green turtle population has increased 500 percent. Earlier this year, the Smithsonian Natural History Museum called this comeback “One of the world’s greatest marine conservation success stories”.

And the turtle comeback isn’t limited to Costa Rica. In Grupo Tortuguero, Mexico, a town that long-been a nesting ground for pacific sea turtles, a new business model is changing the way that people fish. By stringing LED lights on gill nets tree and encouraging locals to fish at night, sea turtles are able to avoid fishermen’s nets and survive to breed. So far, this new method has meant 50 percent fewer sea turtles accidently caught at night and an increase in the number of legally harvested fish for the locals. Really a win-win for everyone involved.

3.) Predators are Returning to Europe

For centuries, Europe was home to some of the first animals to ever capture our imaginations. European fairy tales like Aesop’s Fables and the Brothers Grimm often featured the continent’s most famous animals at the center of their stories. But until recently, you would be hard-pressed to find the inspiration for the Three Bears or the Big Bad Wolf in European forests. Centuries of human expansion alongside contributing factors like the fur trade, forced wolves, bears and lynx out of their natural habitats across Europe. Carpathian wolves, the inspiration for horror stories like Dracula, were nearly extinct and European bears inhabited less than 2 percent of their original habitat.

(Due in large part to lost girls sleeping in their beds)

Recently, however, conservationists have witnessed an unprecedented return by these predators, and in numbers that haven’t been seen in decades. Bears and lynx are spreading into France, the Netherlands and Denmark, and Sweden hasn’t been home to this many wolves since the turn of the 19th century. And perhaps the most interesting thing about all of this is that the return of these animals isn’t the result of wide-spread reintroduction programs. Instead, these animals have been re-colonizing their former territory naturally – probably in response to environmental changes, like rural populations moving to cities or an increase in wild-prey.

So why should we be thankful about an influx of animals with sharp teeth and claws returning to Europe? Well big predators like wolves, bears and lynx are considered keystone species, which basically means that their impact on the ecosystem has a hugely beneficial trickle-down effect.

(Forget the law of the jungle. Think, Reaganomics of the forest)

For example, when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, their presence forced deer out of vulnerable open spaces where they were likely to be caught and eaten. Fewer deer in valleys meant more time for vegetation to grow, meaning stronger roots to firm the soil and avoid erosion along critical waterways. This “trophic cascade” means that, while local farmers and herdsmen might fear the loss of livestock and game, the return of these European predators could have an enormous stabilizing effect on their environment and ours.

4.) The American Chestnut is primed to Beat the Blight

This holiday season, you’re sure to hear Nat King Cole’s baritone crooning “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire” in every mall, skating rink and Christmas special across the country, but because of a devastating blight on American chestnut trees, that lyrics has little meaning for entire generations.

You see, prior to the 1950’s, the chestnut tree was a staple of the United States eastern seaboard. Chestnuts made up a quarter of forests from Maine to Florida, and because of its rot resistant properties, it was used to build everything from houses to boats to railroads. And unlike the other things on our list, the disappearance of the Chestnut wasn’t the result of human consumption, but rather a mysterious blight that killed nearly every chestnut in the country.

Well, scientists at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (Those in the know just call it ESF) have been using genetic engineering to create a new strain of blight-resistant American chestnut, and announced a few weeks ago the they are appealing for regulatory approval to begin reintroducing the chestnut to the American people. How did they beat the blight? Well it’s helpful to think of the blight-resistant chestnut as the botanical equivalent of the Turducken.

(Though it’s considerably less-likely to give you a heart attack)

Instead of a duck stuffed into a chicken, placed in a turkey, this new chestnut has a single wheat gene placed inside its genetic code that confers resistance to the chestnut blight. And though it will take some time to ensure these prototype trees are safe to introduce into the wild, it’s hard not to be thankful that a part of our natural heritage hasn’t been forgotten by time or science. We hope that in a few years, we’ll be able to roast chestnuts with the family like our grandparents did when they were children.

Work to be Done

It’s important to note that despite all of these victories, there is an incredible amount of work left to do. No single success is going to save a species, turn back the clock on global emissions or change the consumption patterns of nations. But we’ll save all of that for our end-of-the-year blog, when shameless try to influence your New Year’s resolution. For now, be thankful, be optimistic and have a wonderful holiday with whomever you call family. Happy Thanksgiving!