Today’s good news story comes from Econews and was sent to me by Noelle Granger.

Thank you, Noelle.

A solar farm in southern England put 40 native sheep under 20,000 panels across about 30 acres to graze in winter, and the twist is that the flock didn’t just “mow the grass”, it helped protect wildflowers and pollinators while using the panels as a storm shelter, turning a power site into a two-job landscape called agrivoltaics

ECONews

At first, it sounds like a rural oddity. A solar plant places 40 native sheep near its panels, lets them graze through winter, and suddenly the field is doing more than producing electricity. At Westmill, the flock became part of a larger experiment in how clean energy, farming, and wildlife can coexist in the same landscape.

The lesson is simple but surprisingly important. Clean energy does not have to mean treating land as a blank sheet of metal and gravel. In practical terms, it can also mean wildflowers, soil life, pollinators, and yes, sheep using solar panels as shelter when the weather turns rough.

A solar farm built for nature

Westmill sits near Watchfield on the Oxfordshire and Wiltshire border in southern England. Its solar cooperative was formed to show that ordinary people can help build renewable energy, and its 30-acre site carries more than 20,000 panels that generate enough electricity for about 1,600 homes a year.

This is not just a power site with grass around it. The Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust, known as WeSET, was set up by the Westmill wind and solar cooperatives to promote sustainable energy through education, visits, and community projects.

Why sheep changed the field

The sheep were not brought in as decoration. They act like living lawn crews, eating a mix of plants and helping stop one aggressive species from overrunning more delicate wildflowers. That matters because a diverse field is better for insects, birds, soil bacteria, and fungi.

Westmill says the animals graze in winter, when they are less likely to disturb nesting birds and when the flowering plants that feed pollinators are not in bloom. It is a small timing choice, but that is where a lot of good land management lives.

There was another bonus hiding in plain sight. The sheep used the panels as protection from wind and rain, and the broad mix of plants helped them gain weight more effectively. For the flock, the solar farm was not an obstacle. It was shelter, food, and a quieter field.

What agrivoltaics means

The idea has a name, agrivoltaics. It means using the same piece of land for agriculture and solar power instead of forcing farmers and energy planners to pick only one. In everyday language, it is a field that works two jobs.

Can a solar farm also become a small nature reserve? To a large extent, Westmill suggests it can, but only when design and management come first. Planting wildflowers is a start, but the site still needs grazing, mowing, monitoring, and restraint to prevent one species from taking over.

The land question

Solar farms often trigger a familiar concern. Are panels taking land away from food? Westmill’s educational materials say about 44.5 million acres in the United Kingdom are used for agriculture, while about 44,500 acres are currently used for solar, meaning the solar footprint is still small compared with farming overall.

Solar Energy UK also reports that solar farms occupy less than one tenth of one percent of UK land today. Its 2024 fact sheet says a build out aligned with net zero targets would still put solar farms at about six tenths of one percent of UK land by 2050. That does not erase local conflicts, but it does put the scale in view.

Science backs a careful approach

Researchers are not saying every solar project is automatically good for nature. A 2025 Lancaster University review of 167 articles found both positive and negative effects, depending on climate, ecosystem, and the stage of the solar park’s life. In other words, location and management are not details. They are the whole game.

Professor Alona Armstrong of Lancaster University has helped lead work on agrivoltaics and solar park management. With Professor Piran White of the University of York, she helped develop the Solar Park Impacts on Ecosystem Services tool, which uses evidence to guide decisions on wildflower meadows, hedgerows, wetlands, soil health, and other habitat choices.

Better design from the ground up

Blending animals and panels also changes the engineering conversation. Once sheep are part of the system, a solar site has to think harder about cable protection, frame height, maintenance access, and hardware tough enough to handle real animals in real weather. That may sound simple, but simple details are often what decide whether a project works.

The result is a model that can be easier to maintain and more accepted by nearby communities. People worried about the electric bill may see the electricity. Farmers may see grazing space. Local residents may see fewer noisy mowers, less exhaust, and more life between the rows.

What Westmill shows

Westmill is not a magic fix for every solar debate. Some land should remain focused on food, some habitats need extra protection, and experts warn that poor design can still harm soil or wildlife. But the project shows that solar farms do not have to be single-purpose places.

At the end of the day, what it is trying to do is rewrite the field’s job description. A site can produce power, feed sheep, support pollinators, protect soil, and teach visitors what community energy looks like up close. That is a quieter kind of energy transition, but maybe a more durable one.

The good news in this story is that animals and technology go well together. Today’s JohnKu talks about co-existence. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Together by John W. Howell © 2026

Solar panel farms,

With sheep as cohabitants . . .

Today’s Good news story comes from the Good News Network.

A globally-important colony for seabirds has been sold to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to ensure the 100,000 gannets and 10,000 puffins that live there will benefit from top-notch conservation management.

Owned by the Scottish noble Dalrymple family for 320 years, Bass Rock and the neighboring uninhabited island of Craigleith have long been famous worldwide for the epic colony of gannets which nest there.

Located in the Firth of Forth, the gannets live among the remains of a 14th century castle and a 17th century prison dubbed “Scotland’s Alcatraz.” The ‘Rock’ has been a figure of inspiration in song and literature for generations.

Sir David Attenborough described it as one of the “12 wildlife wonders of the world.”

Today though, the royals have decided to call time on their stewardship of the island after rising numbers of Scottish seabird fatalities brought Sir Hew Dalrymple around to the idea that conservationists will be better able to protect the magnificent colony with unfettered management of the island.

“I made the decision to do this because of the risk these birds are now facing,” Sir Dalrymple told reporters from the island. “I thought an organization like the RSPB would be better equipped to protect the islands and their wildlife than a private individual.”

“Hence, we have been in discussions and I am glad to say, although with some emotional regret, they are now custodians of these two islands.”

The Dalrymple family had long collaborated with the Scottish Seabird Center to carry out conservation measures on Bass Rock, which The Scotsman credited with supporting the growth of the island’s puffin colony to 5-figure numbers, and with eliminating an invasive tree species.

However with a massive offshore wind farm being recently approved nearby that is estimated to have an impact on the gannet colony, the decision was made to sell.

RSPB bought the islands for around £449,906 ($680,000) with the help of the National Heritage Memorial and Lottery funds.

“For the Memorial Fund, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to secure the islands for the public and ensure that, with RSPB Scotland and the Scottish Seabird Centre at the helm, their role as seabird sanctuaries is protected for the future,” said Simon Thurley, chairman of both funds for the National Trust.

The good news in this story is that unselfish action took the place of tradition to the benefit of these birds. Today’s JohnKu talks about how nature’s benefit trumps saving family tradition. I hope you have a super weekend.

Royalty by John W. Howell © 2026

Royal tradition,

Gives way to good stewardship . . .

Of nature’s treasures.

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network.

A huge area of the Everglades that was drained in an attempt to convert it to suburbia has been restored to a somewhat native ecosystem after 2 decades of reverse-landscape engineering.

Picayune Strand is a large, almost perfect rectangle of South Florida wetland, located northwest of Everglades National Park and northeast of Thousand Islands Nat. Wildlife Refuge, and west of the Florida Panther Nat. Wildlife Refuge.

It was part of an enormous land package bought by the real estate company Gulf American in the 1950s in an attempt to create America’s largest suburban housing development, called Golden Gate Estates.

But their effort to tame the swamp failed, even though substantial landscape alterations were made to try to dry out the area. Picayune Strand is 2 feet lower in elevation than the Golden Gate Estate land to the north, and this little difference made it virtually impossible to prevent flooding. The company went bankrupt.

One of the first projects identified and pursued by conservationists under the Everglades Restoration Plan of 2000, Picayune Strand has changed significantly over the years. Since 1985, conservationists have been buying up all the private, often unbuilt-on land that Gulf American had managed to sell. It was tedious lawyer’s work, but by 2004, it was all consolidated into a conservation package.

Gulf American built 4 large canals to channel water off the land they wanted to develop, while the earth and stone they churned up were used to crisscross the area with causeways, atop which roads ran. These were the first targets for groups like the Everglades Foundation, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, and the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The hydrology of the Everglades is defined by water flowing across the once-7 million square miles all in the same direction at roughly the same snail’s pace, a phenomenon described as “sheet flow” through a “river of grass.” Huge areas remained flooded all year, and plugging the canals was the first step towards restoring the natural hydrology.

To restore this, the roads were torn up, and the materials were chucked back into the canals from whence they came.

From macro to micro

“Picayune is as good a place in South Florida as there is, in terms of getting it back to what it was before,” Michael Duever, an ecologist who has been monitoring the Picayune project, told Yale News. “We’re feeling that we’re in the range of 90 plus-or-minus percent of restoration.”

There had to be some compromises, as people still live in Picayune Strand. Part of that 10% is missing; Duever refers to it as 3 pumping stations that pull rainwater out of the closed canals on the northern boundary of the Picayune project and dump it into large basins that will leak it out in many directions. The water level at times is higher than natural, however, and at other times drier.

Vegetation is coming back in a big way—not always ideally, but upland plants cannot now spread further south because of the continual water bodies. More native species that have missed the continual wetness are also returning—like a native, wild sunflower.

The restored Picayune is expected to help several endangered species, including the red-cockaded woodpecker and the Florida panther, while studies have already shown that increased insect abundance is benefiting the bonneted bat, the largest of its kind in Florida, with a wingspan greater than a foot.

“I kind of view Picayune Strand as a microcosm of the entire [Everglades] plan,” Stephen Davis, chief science officer at the Everglades Foundation, told Richard Mertens at Yale.

The good news in this story is that once a mistake is realized, many hands helped make it right again. Today’s JohnKu talks about rectifying mistakes. I hope you have a terrific weekend.

Mistakes by John W. Howell © 2026

A mistake is made,

That threatens wildlife and Earth. . .

All hands are on deck.

Today’s good news story comes from the Good News Network.

Today’s good news story comes from the Good News Network

When Mr. Carl Craft nearly died from a brain hemorrhage, he and his wife Dawn reviewed their bucket list. Carl wanted to travel, and Dawn said she wanted to go to medical school.

“He thought I was crazy,” she said.

Now, though, Dawn Zuidgeest-Craft proudly holds a doctorate in medicine after graduating as the school’s oldest-ever graduate at 72.

The doctoral dream took root from the earliest periods of Zuidgeest-Craft’s life and would blossom into a career as a nurse practitioner and pediatric educator. It was a career she enjoyed even while marrying and giving birth to two children.

For their sake, Zuidgeest-Craft put her medical school ambition on hold—at least until her 40s, she thought. Then she got divorced and remarried before she and her new husband, Carl, decided to start their own family. Zuidgeest-Craft spent the decade raising two more children.

The dream of medical school gradually faded until Carl suffered his brain hemorrhage, at which point Dawn realized it had to happen now, or, as the phrase goes, never.

Digging into her retirement savings, Zuidgeest-Craft paid the tuition for St. James School of Medicine in Anguilla, the Caribbean, where the institution waives the requirement for a Medical College Admission Test.

It wasn’t a straightforward process, and the senior scholar wouldn’t have hoped or imagined failing the biochemistry exam during year 1, but with the support of her husband Carl and the classmates who all remember her fondly from their dorm living, movie nights, and yoga sessions on the beach, Zuidgeest-Craft kept going.

It took clinical rotations in Chicago and West Virginia, and a stint in South Texas, where a medical professional encouraged her—based on her aptitude—to seek a residency program, for Zuidgeest-Craft to graduate with her doctorate this month, not long before her 73rd Birthday.

“When you have to do it for work… you feel like, ‘I got to do this so that I can pay my rent,’” Zuidgeest-Craft, who has three grandchildren, told the Washington Post. “I want to do this because I really enjoy this.”

“I feel alive when I work in the medical field.”

She will begin her residency at Trinity Health Medical Center in Muskegon, Michigan, this year.

The good news in this story is that a long-held dream has finally been realized. Today’s JohnKu talks about dreams. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Dreams by John W. Howell © 2026

They are yours to have,

Which no one should take away . . .

Work till they come true.

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network.

Australia now boasts one of the world’s largest acreages of private land set aside for conservation, and the Guardian recently reported that generous and wealthy citizens are to thank for it.

Leaving land to conservation purposes in wills and making bequests of estates have played a big role in amassing 24 million acres of privately conserved land.

Bush Heritage Australia manages some 3 million acres of these, and its CEO, Rachel Lowry, told the Guardian that such contributions play an outsized role in their work.

Last year, for example, the organization reported 4,600 such bequests, almost double the 2022 total. They believe it stems from people truly attempting, as we’re often taught, to leave the world in a better place than when they found it.

“Some of Australia’s most threatened and fragile ecosystems and wildlife sit outside of the national reserve system,” said Lowry. “They’re found on private land or pastoral country, and they may have deep cultural and ecological values, but they’re not protected from threats such as land clearing, mining, or invasive species.”

Several organizations in the country, such as the North East Tasmania Land Trust, are carrying out similar work, and the governments of the Australian states are taking notice. One of Bush Heritage’s protected areas, the Pilungah Reserve, was granted protection under Queensland state law equivalent to a federal National Park, demonstrating how valuable the work is seen by the public sector.

In the United States, one of the largest protected areas is a private-public partnership called American Prairie.

American Prairie has spent over 2 decades buying and leasing land between the Charles M. Russel Natural Wildlife Refuge and the Upper Missouri Breaks Natural Monument in Montana to create America’s largest assemblage of wild prairie for the purposes of conservation and recreation. It’s also received donations of land on the way to reaching its current size.

GNN has reported on several major milestones of this massive and constantly growing mosaic of grasslands, hills, woods, and wetlands, including a substantial 22,000-acre land purchase that had blocked public access to the Missouri Breaks, and the clearance of over 100 miles of derelict fencing across their land.

The organization has accumulated 603,657 acres, which comprises 167,070 deeded acres and 436,587 leased public acres. Their goal is ultimately to protect, and in some cases, rewild 2.3 million acres.

In 2024, American Prairie set a new visitation record for the seventh year in a row with more than 6,600 overnight visitors to its huts and campgrounds, and over 5,000 visitors at its National Discovery Center in Lewistown, Montana.

An American organization that helps connect and advocate for private conservation land in the US reports that 61 million acres—more than all the US national parks—are privately held for conservation. This amounts to about 3% of the 60% of American lands that are privately owned.

Called the Land Trust Alliance, it aims to double this number by the end of the decade.

The Good news in today’s story is that private land donations are helping preserve natural resources. Today’s JohnKu talks about private methods. of conservation. I hope you have a super weekend.

Contributions by John W. Howell © 2026

Individuals

Have the power to conserve . . .

God bless those who do.

Today’s good news story comes from The Pulse and was sent to me by Noelle Granger.

Foxes were allowed into a solar farm, and they ended up turning the panels into part of their habitat

by Warren van der Sandt

April 25, 2026

in Energy

It wasn’t part of the plan.

Solar farms were built to generate clean energy, not to host wildlife. Large, fenced-off areas filled with panels don’t exactly look like a natural habitat.

But when a small, endangered fox was allowed into one of these sites, something unexpected happened.

Instead of struggling to survive, it adapted—quickly. And what researchers saw next began to change how these spaces are understood.

How solar farms started behaving like ecosystems

At first glance, solar farms seem simple. Rows of panels. Open land. Minimal human presence. But that last detail turned out to matter more than expected. Because once construction ends, these areas become relatively undisturbed. No heavy traffic. No constant noise. Limited human activity.

Over time, that creates stability. Vegetation begins to grow beneath the panels, often encouraged by design. Native plants take hold, insects follow, and small prey species begin to appear. It doesn’t happen overnight.

But slowly, these sites begin to resemble something else. Not just infrastructure—but a habitat. And for some species, that shift is enough to create an opportunity.

A species on the edge finds an unlikely refuge.

The San Joaquin kit fox has been struggling for decades. Native to California’s Central Valley, this small canid has lost more than 95% of its natural habitat due to agriculture and development. Survival has become increasingly difficult. It relies on space, cover, and access to prey. And it moves constantly, often using dozens of dens to avoid predators.

So when conservationists began exploring whether solar farms could support wildlife, the idea seemed uncertain. Could a human-made environment really replace what had been lost? The only way to know was to try. And when the foxes entered these sites, their behavior was closely monitored.

What researchers found wasn’t hesitation. It was an adaptation.

What actually happened inside the solar farms

The foxes didn’t just pass through these areas. They started using them. Solar farms provided something rare: protection and resources in the same place. The perimeter fencing, originally designed to secure the site, acted as a barrier against larger predators. Inside, the environment was rich with small animals—rodents and insects that thrive under the panels. That meant food was readily available.

The panels themselves created shade, helping regulate ground temperature and making conditions more stable during extreme heat. And perhaps most importantly, human disturbance was minimal. The foxes began establishing dens within the solar farms, using the land as part of their regular territory.

In some cases, according to the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, they returned repeatedly, treating these sites as reliable habitat. What was meant to be an energy facility had become something more.

Why this changes how we think about how energy and wildlife interact

For years, one of the biggest concerns about renewable energy projects has been land use. Building large-scale solar farms requires space—and that space often overlaps with natural habitats. But this example suggests a different possibility. With the right design and management, these sites don’t have to displace wildlife. They can support it. That doesn’t mean every solar farm will have the same effect. Conditions matter. Location matters. Planning matters. But the success of the San Joaquin kit fox shows that coexistence is possible. And in some cases, it may offer a second chance for species that are running out of options.

The idea is still evolving.

But one thing is becoming clear. What looks like a field of solar panels from the outside might be something very different on the inside—a place where technology and nature are starting to share the same ground.

The good news in this story is that conservation of resources does not have to come at the expense of native species. Today’s JohnKu talks about smart conservation. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Co-Existance by John W. Howell  © 2026,

Clean energy has,

Risks to the animal world . . .

That can be reduced.

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network

A Chinese conglomerate that controls 37% of the global market for EV batteries has recently said it will “spare no effort” to electrify parts of the marine shipping industry.

The cost of lithium ions has fallen by 90% over the past two decades, epitomizing the overall reductions in battery costs that have facilitated the resulting boom in EVs.

In all that, however, little has been done to investigate the use of battery-powered maritime systems. It’s for good reason: batteries produce lower-density energy than the heavy fuels used to power container ships or tugboats. Displacing water requires a lot more umph than displacing air.

Now, CATL, which also controls some 22% of the world’s energy storage systems, is planning to double its maritime applications division to pioneer early battery systems for near-shore vessels.

“We will spare no effort in investing in R&D, human resources, and materials to build the supply chain for this industry,” said Su Yi, who leads the group’s Maritime Business Unit.

The International Maritime Organization aims to halve the industry’s share of global shipping emissions to 1.5% from 3% by 2050, a goal that has so far been pursued through greener fuels such as green methanol and hydrogen.

In 2024, GNN reported that a consortium of Japanese firms successfully demonstrated the first-ever zero-emissions ship above 20 gross tons, with the pilot sailing it 30 kilometers (18 miles) out to an offshore wind farm and back.

A year earlier, GNN reported that global shipping leader Maersk had ordered a green methanol-powered ship two years earlier and had already placed an order for 25 more methanol-powered vessels, in addition to retrofitting existing ships with methanol engines and turbines.

Su told the Financial Times that the current focus is on producing batteries that meet the extreme requirements of powering large vessels near shore. In addition to requiring maximum discharge rate, the batteries would need to last long and remain safe in ocean conditions.

CATL reported impressive 2025 earnings, with 42% year-over-year revenue growth to $10 billion, driven by demand for data centers and energy storage. Su didn’t provide timelines or sales targets, but merely mentioned that she and her team were confident there’d be market demand.

Its existing strategy since 2017 has been a battery-swap model whereby near-shore vessels like tugs can swap their batteries at a station for a fully-charged one to enable ’round-the-clock operations.

The group had previously seen success with such a model in its long-haul trucking division. Previously, the company developed hybrid battery-fossil fuel solutions for still-water and near-shore vessels, as well as for cruise ships.

The good news in this story is that more resources are being invested in alternative power sources for the maritime industry. Today’s JohnKu talks about ongoing solutions to the world’s carbon problem. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Pressure by John W. Howell © 2026

Alternative ways,

Are continuously being sought . . .

To help Mother Earth.