Quote of the Day: “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton
Photo by: marcos mayer
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
180 years ago today, the Associated Press organized in New York City as a nonprofit news cooperative to reduce the cost of covering the events of the Mexican American War. The original AP was agreed upon by senior members and editors of The Sun, the New York Herald, the New York Courier and Enquirer, The Journal of Commerce, and the New York Evening Express. Today, AP operates 235 news bureaus in 94 countries, and covers the news in English, Spanish, and Arabic, winning 59 Poulitzer prizes along the way. READ more about the AP’s long history… (1846)
From CNN’s travel desk comes the story of a miracle passion project that goes down smooth—and tastes great with a bagel.
At the center of Hong Kong, it might seem a preposterous notion that anyone is engaged in agriculture in the world’s densest city, but on the relative frontier of the city-state’s Lantau Island, a remarkable experiment is being undertaken: coffee growing.
Despite lacking altitude and space, some intrepid java jockeys have managed to cultivate an Arabica coffee bean on Lantau Island. The island is about the only place you can find anything describable as “rural” in Hong Kong; it’s also where you will find LCC Roastery, and its owner Ringo Lam.
This rock star of coffee is part of the sales division of the Lantau Coffee Co-Op, an effort to produce something of real value and pride in a city where practically everything is imported. Despite the archipelago’s highest point being less than 1,000 meters, the kind of altitude where premium Arabica is grown, coffee can and does grow.
Katie Chick, assistant director at the University of HK’s Center for Civil Society and Governance, helps run one of the co-op’s coffee farms on Hong Kong itself. The islands sit 22 degrees north of the Equator—perfect coffee latitude. Chick’s farm yields around 50 kilograms of coffee beans from 800 trees.
The operation started when Lam, a former tech entrepreneur, visited Panama and was given 100 coffee seeds. Back on Lantau, he planted them and 80 or so sprouted, after which he began to look for farmers who’d be willing to cultivate them. 5 agreed, which turned into 25, while the 80 seeds would multiply into 400 shrubs.
Last year, these 400 shrubs yielded 10 kilograms of coffee, or 22 pounds, the largest harvest yet. CNN reports the coffee they thusly produce lacks the depth and nuance of Arabica coffee grown at altitude, but was still smooth and enjoyable.
Lam and Chick routinely meet with other growers and brainstorm ways about how to refine and evolve growing techniques, including through different washing methods that might stimulate changes in the plants which result in more complex flavor.
COFFEE GAZETTE:
They’ve also come up with interesting ways of using the coffee to improve lives and attitudes.
One grower uses her coffee farm as a sort of gardening therapy service; another enters it in tasting contests around the city’s 700 coffee shops to show that coffee can grow in Hong Kong. Lam actually runs workshops on producing Lantau beans for roasting, which gives residents a taste of the sweaty, dirty labor involved in producing the product they drink every day.
“We won’t have enough land to [grow coffee at scale], but at least after going through this workshop and exercise, they will be more connected to the origin,” Lam told CNN.
SHARE The Story Of These Passionate Growers And Brewers With Your Friends…
The world’s most visited museum has made the wise decision to move the world’s most famous painting to a separate wing, where clamoring hordes pushing for a glimpse can stay separate from the rest of the art-loving public.
In a statement announcing major structural changes to the Louvre in Paris, administrators revealed that the Mona Lisa will have her own 33,000 square-foot exhibition space.
It means that people looking to see the famous Giocanda will not necessarily have to pass through or even visit the rest of the Louvre. They will be spared the extra time waiting in line, and can get in, take their selfies, and get out.
Meanwhile, those who wish to see the hundreds of thousands of other pieces among the galleries, will be spared the extra waiting time in line from those queuing only for the purpose of seeing the Mona Lisa.
It’s a superb compromise, and one that will also come with a $1 billion renovation aimed at reducing congestion all over the Louvre and modernizing the massive building’s infrastructure.
The Mona Lisa attracts roughly 20,000 admirers alone, day in and day out, and it’s not uncommon for visitors to leave feeling a sense of uneasiness and claustrophobia in the crush that pushes as much as polite society can handle to get close enough for a glimpse of the rather small portrait.
“Every day, this very room is the scene of intense agitation,” Laurence des Cars, the museum’s former director, said at the press conference announcing the renovations.
The Louvre has been a source of several high-profile failures, including the heist of the French crown jewels and an earlier water leak that damaged some 400 artworks.
PARIS BITES: First Ever Cheese Museum Opens in Paris: ‘It’s Gouda Brie a Delicious Visit’
Selldorf Architects, a New York-based firm, was offered the contract out of 5 finalists whose designs and submissions were picked from a pool of 100 firms. Selldorf will partner with Studios Architecture Paris on the project which is centered around the expansion of the Grande Colonnade, the museum’s eastern facade, which was built in the 17th century in the classical tradition.
The contest-winning design addresses existing challenges to foot traffic by adding two new underground entrances, new, separate dining areas and gift shops, as well as expanded gallery space.
MORE MUSEUM NEWS: Visitors Can Now Watch the Restoring of a Masterpiece Bellini in Venice (Check out the Video)
“New pathways and greenery connecting the museum with the rest of Paris aim to solve the museum’s growing foot traffic problem by accommodating an estimated three million more visitors per year,” Smithsonian reports.
SHARE This Great News For Louvre Visitors Oppressed By The Crowds…
Early in May, GNN reported how Australia and USA citizens have amassed 85 million acres of private land specifically for conservation.
From the Spokesman-Review comes the story of a man in Washington state who’s about to make it 85,000,885 by donating his own patch to the Kalispel Indian Tribe.
Having spent his whole working life in urbanity during a 30-year career with the Social Security Administration, Gary Verbrugge longed for the natural world he remembered from his youth, where he lived on land that was bought by his relatives after moving from Iowa in the early 20th century.
After taking an early retirement to help with his parents’ ailing health, he bought some more land and a cabin owned by a neighbor and went home to see what had happened to his father and uncles’ forest.
It turns out that the forester they entrusted the management of their land to was more interested in making money from timber sales than ensuring the health of the woodland.
A year later, in 2007, Verbrugge partnered with the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy to turn 605 wooded acres he owned into a conservation easement. In 2025, he bought another 280 acres directly abutting his own land from his nieces and nephews, and added them to the package.
The idea, explained by the INLC’s conservation director Michael Crabtree, is that the Conservancy acts “kind of like the third party that makes sure the rules are being followed,” on behalf of the owner, who has stipulated he wants to see the land preserved in a natural state.
MORE MERITFUL DONATIONS:
Though Verbrugge, who lives alone at 72 years old in the forest, has no heirs to pass the property to, he found a suitable inheritor in the Kalispel Indians, who said they would carry the responsibility of keeping the land in good health forward with “profound gratitude.”
As to the land itself, the Little Spokane River runs through it, along with several creeks home to bull trout. In a subdivided and developed area, Verbrugge’s woodland is a haven for elk, deer, moose, wolves, cougar, bobcat, and eagles.
“To see the wildlife, where they’re not aggressive, they’re not scared, they’re just at home, is the reward,” Verbrugge told the Spokesman-Review, who enjoys catching glimpses of his sylvan neighbors with trail cams.
SHARE This Man’s Honorable Gesture To Save Some Of Natural America, However Small…
With every pass of his squeegee, a window washer in Kansas City reveals the personal story behind his favorite local businesses through his popular social media channel.
Davis Roethler is co-owner of Window Wolf, KC’s most trusted window washer, but that’s hardly all there is to his story.
With experience as a social media content manager, Roethler often offers free window cleanings to the great, struggling, or unique restaurants and businesses in the metropolitan area.
For the business owners, the free clean is a welcome relief to high costs and low margins of running a restaurant, but what they don’t know is that behind Roethler’s Meta glasses that record everything he sees is a master plan to send their bottom line sky high.
“When you just look at the data, opening up a restaurant, from a business standpoint, it’s a terrible idea. It’s a huge risk. The numbers are not on your side,” Roethler told Kansas City Star’s Rashad Alexander.
“When you realize that, you realize that there’s so much opportunity in KC to help out these small businesses to make sure that they’re not part of that statistic of closing down.”
Window Wolf has 8,700 followers on Instagram, and it’s growing every day. Followers tune in to see Roethler “flip” the traditional food content strategy—to tell the story of the people preparing the food which other influencers just nom and noise about.
Dunn Deal BBQ, run by pitmaster Gerald Dunn, who is also the director of entertainment at the American Jazz Museum in KC, is just one beneficiary of the Roethler recommendation. Tasty African Food KC, Kolaches and Coffee, and Simply Grand Kitchen and Creamery have all enjoyed the same.
Many of these longer-form video reviews receive tens of thousands of views, and in the case of Kolaches and Coffee, may have saved the business altogether.
KANSAS CITY STORIES: Hotel Honors Honeymoon Gift Certificate it Gave to Kansas City Newlyweds 40 Years Ago
Dunn Deal and Simply Grand Kitchen are located practically next to each other, and each have lines around the block on Roethler’s recommendation.
In many of these cases, the content doesn’t stop, as Roethler will come back to keep washing—and keep talking, to the owners, cooks, and families—to keep pulling out the personal stories of struggle, passion, and triumph that make up the recipes served up at each location.
MORE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR GOOD: Polish Influencer Raises $67 Million for Cancer Research During 9-day Livestream
And it all started with a window cleaning, which for all the impact of the food review channel, is still the principle activity of Window Wolf, which hopes to expand its offerings from gutter cleanings, window cleanings, and pressure washing to high rise window washing as well.
WATCH the Dunn Deal review below…
SHARE This Good Man’s Good Work Uplifting Those Around Him…
Quote of the Day: “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson
Photo by: Getty Images For Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
55 years ago today, Marvin Gaye released What’s Going On, a landmark LP in pop music history. The concept album flowed with songs written from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning to the US, and seeing only hatred, suffering, and injustice.
Regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 20th century, the artist himself produced it—a first for Motown which had resisted any protest themes—yet they finally released it, and it became Motown’s best-selling album to date. WATCH a segment from the Biography documentary, What’s Going On… (1971)
From Riviera Beach in Florida comes the story of a man returning $30,000 to a poor soul who’d misplaced it, saying “it wasn’t mine to take.”
The story is simple, yet powerful, and a reminder that there are good people all over the country; all over the world.
It starts with Luis Salazar walking into the bathroom of a Wawa convenience store and finding a fanny pack hung on the handrail inside the stall.
Salazar asked around inside the store to see if anyone had forgotten it, with no avail. His next thought was to open it up to look for an ID, but his mind went “numb” from what he saw inside: several huge wads of cash.
Yet being the good person prefaced in this story, Salazar never thought of taking a dime, and instead spent several days trying to locate the person who owned it. Eventually, the fanny pack’s owner contacted Riviera Beach police to report it missing, who used security camera footage to identify Salazar.
They told him the owner was waiting at the Riviera Beach Police Station, and Salazar went right over.
“So, I give him his bag. ‘This is yours.’ And he was crying. And he hugged me,” Salazar said.
MORE GREAT DEEDS LIKE THIS:
“I was pretty astonished that anybody would have done that,” said the owner, who chose not to be identified. “Think about it. That’s life-changing money. People would kill for that kind of money.”
For his part, Salazar didn’t seem astonished.
“It’s not my money to take. I was not raised that way,” Salazar said.
SHARE This Great Story Of Honesty And Integrity With Your Friends…
A heartwarming, brain-freezing story comes now from the streets of Massachusetts, where a woman who offered free ice cream to a penniless child sparked a McFlurry of giving.
Madyson Silvagnoli can be found in her truck—Maddy’s Ice Cream and More—along the streets of Gardner on hot summer days.
Silvagnoli says her ice cream truck is a symbol of childhood and nostalgia for her customers, and is as much about spreading joy as turning a profit.
So perhaps it should not have surprised anyone when, confronted with a teary-eyed child explaining he had “no dollars” to buy ice cream, Silvagnoli dolloped a single scoop in a small cup, added some whipped cream and sprinkles, and handed it to the boy.
“We don’t turn kids away when they don’t have money,” Silvagnoli can be heard in a video that went deliciously viral. “You want an ice cream from Maddy, you get an ice cream from Maddy.”
“Buddy, you can always come up to the ice cream truck,” Silvagnoli tells him.
Shared on Instagram, the response to Maddy and her kindness was immense, with many praising her to the high heavens. The comment section coalesced around the idea of donating to a sort of fund that can pay for free ice cream to other children without pocket money.
FOOD TRUCK TALES: Viral Video Sparks $20,000 in Donations for Ice Cream Vendor Who Walks Miles in the Florida Heat
Silvagnoli put up a product on her website called the No More Tears fund, and also launched a line of merchandise where the proceeds go to do just that—funding free ice cream giveaways.
It features happy smiling cartoon ice cream cones and cups with a tagline “kindness is always free” which was taken from the caption of the viral video that was viewed 9 million times.
OTHER SWEET STORIES: Toy Story Character Talks with Deaf Girl in Heartwarming ASL Moment That Went Viral
Speaking with Today, Silvagnoli said she “empathizes” with every child who comes up to the ice cream truck.
“The world is getting so scary, and I have three daughters, and nieces and nephews and all that, and I want them to have a bright future,” she adds. “I feel like, if I start something so small they can see my kindness, pay it forward, and it just spreads.”
WATCH the video below…
Give Your Friends The SCOOP On This Sweet Woman’s Gesture On Social Media…
Native coastal Australians are experiencing a dramatic reversal of fortunes—from facing jail time over fishing to being trained to lead a whole new fishing industry.
Documented in a feature piece at Australia’s ABC News, young people from the Walbunja indigenous community are reconnecting to traditional fishing practices in order to suppress a very yummy plague of long-spined sea urchins devasting southern Australia’s reefs, seagrass, and kelp forests.
Months ago, it looked like Walbunja youth John Carriage was going to face jail time for diving for abalone and lobster, something his ancestors would have done for thousands of years.
It was the fourth time, he told ABC, he has been in court defending the right to practice his cultural heritage of free diving for dinner.
As it turns out, his was the most recent in a string of dropped charges against traditional fishermen, as the state of New South Wales has decided to close this chapter of indigenous prosecution.
And for good reason: NSW needs their help. Decades of overharvesting predatory fish, and a rise in average sea temperatures have created a suite of unbalanced conditions that have proven to be like steroids for the long-spined sea urchin, an endemic species, but one whose destructive tendencies used to be kept under control by these other factors.
Today, legions of these little invertebrates march across the NSW seabed devouring any vegetation they find. Fortunately for human civilization that disrupted the balance in their ecosystem, a simple solution presents itself—lunch.
Now, Walbunja members are training to establish the first Aboriginal-led fishing industry in New South Wales by unleashing their traditional diving practices against the urchins to the end of harvesting thousands annually for the Australasian seafood markets.
John Carriage and his brother Denzel are among those training to dive for urchins professionally under a program organized by the Joonga Land and Water Aboriginal Corporation and helped by an AUD$1.48 million grant offered by the government that once sought to imprison them.
MORE INDIGENOUS STORIES: Salt Water Restores Native Queensland Ecosystems After Dozens of Tidal Gates Removed
“Every time we’re taking a sea urchin out, we’re allowing the weed to regrow,” Carriage told ABC. “We should be able to have more fish, more lobster, more abalone, and better quality sea urchins.”
“The urchin industry is relatively new in Australia, and there’s a real opportunity for traditional custodians to be at the center of this industry, rather than at the margins of it as we’ve seen with other fisheries in the past,” said marine biologist Cayne Layton, who explained that urchin gathering can have demonstrable, positive impacts on marine vegetation richness.
URCHIN CONTROL: Smashing 6 Million Sea Urchins with Hammers Saved a California Kelp Paradise Thanks to Volunteer Divers
As part of their training with Joonga Corp. the Denzels will learn how to pilot boats, dive with supplied oxygen, and select the best urchins for harvesting, cleaning, and export.
Elders are thrilled their youth are having the chance to forge a relationship with their “sea country” as they did when they were young—they called it a necessary step to healing the land, even if it’s land that’s underwater.
SHARE This Great News For Indigenous Australians…
In India, where more people are injured or killed on the roads than almost anywhere else, a recently created program is aiming to save lives by leveraging the largest source of capital the country possesses: human capital.
The Rah-Veer program will reward Good Samaritans with 25,000 Indian rupees—about $250—for stopping to assist victims of road accidents during the first 60 minutes post injury.
First aid during this “golden hour” substantially improves the chances any patient will survive, but the problem is convincing people to get on their knees among the blood and bones and help.
In India, where traffic can be abominable, in particular on rural roads, ambulances are routinely required to cover large distances and may not arrive within this golden hour. In such circumstances, a badly injured motorist could fall beyond the point of no return if no one is there to apply a tourniquet, a splint, or even just to be placed in the recovery position.
Open to all citizens, those with medical training or not, Rah-Veer rewards will be given to anyone who stops to help, and will be shared if multiple stop.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways wrote that Rah-Veer ensures that citizens who help accident victims are shielded from legal complexities. There is no requirement to disclose personal information, and no one will be detained. Their privacy is protected, and if a statement is required, it is done quick, simply, and at a time and place of the witness’s choosing.
GOOD SAMARITAN STORIES:
Every year, the Ministry awards the 10 most vital or courageous Rah-Veer interventions with a bonus $1,000 and a certificate of appreciation.
In the same legislation that created the Rah-Veer program, a new tweak to hospital funding will ensure that no victim of a road collision will be refused due to the inability to pay upfront. Cashless treatment is guaranteed for the first 7 days; hospitals cannot demand upfront payment and cannot refuse admission.
The expenses are expected to be covered under a new payment stream from general insurance companies in insured cases, and by a government fund in the case of uninsured vehicles or hit-and-runs.
SHARE This Great Indian News With Your Friends…
Quote of the Day: “Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
Photo by: Thomas Depenbusch (CC license)
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Happy Birthday to Cher, who turns 80 today. The actress, dancer, and singer has sold over 100 million records. The ‘Goddess of Pop’, with her distinctively resonant contralto voice, reached the top of the charts in 1965 with the Sonny & Cher hit, I Got You Babe, and in her solo career with four No.1 singles, Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves, Half-Breed, Dark Lady, and Believe. WATCH her sing My Way to an elephant… (1946)
From Queensland, Australia, comes the story of how a little salt can go a long way to restoring an ecosystem.
Near the area of Mackay, tidal gates and embankments built between 50 and 60 years ago to keep out tides of seawater are being removed by the dozen. It’s reestablishing salt marsh and estuarine ecosystems that humans once spent a fortune trying to eliminate.
As knowledge about the importance of these ecosystems has grown, experts on the ground say, it gradually became clear that it was better to return the land back to its natural state.
“Mackay’s getting built in and the animals are running out of space,” 60-year-old rancher Christopher Rek told ABC News AU. “I stole from nature by using all my cows and now it’s time to give the land back and let nature do its thing.”
Greening Australia, the Yuwi Indigenous Corporation, the water management company Catchment Solutions, and the state fisheries authority, all took part in helping undo the tidal controls. Catchment Solution contacted Rek to allow them to remove the tidal gates that stopped salt water coming onto his property.
Already, he and fisheries ecologies Matt Moore have recorded juvenile barramundi using the reestablished waterways the tidewater has brought. Before settlement, these brackish waters were key channels that allowed salt-tolerant species to move between the sea and the interior to seek spawning nurseries.
Not only were the habitats important for animals like fish, but for plants like mangroves. Along with the lack of salty water, these globally important trees were outcompeted by an introduced grass species brought to Queensland for use as cattle fodder.
Hymenachne is considered a weed of national significance, but the return of the salt water through a 45-foot-long channel dug through an artificial embankment has already killed off 80% of it in the area around Cape Palmerston National Park.
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Over 600 Lakes, Ponds, Reservoirs Restored Across the Whole of India by Divinely-Inspired Nonprofit
At 180-feet in length, the embankment blocked the ocean’s high tide from entering a wide area at the southern boundary of the Yuwi traditional owners native title lands.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and Greening Australia helped the Yuwi dig the channel which restored Neptune’s touch and banished the Hymenachne. Local elders were there to witness the event, which they described as “a very special and spiritual moment.”
QUEENSLAND NEWS: Queensland Declared Drought Free for First Time in Decade: Colors Have Blossomed Out of the Brown
In Mackey alone, there are between 500 and 600 tidal gates, with thousands more located across Queensland, so more work is needed. Inspiring stories like Christopher Rek’s pasture-turned-barramundi-habitat, or the Yuwi reconnecting with their watery world, will hopefully help drive the movement forward.
It’s definitely a worldwide trend: removing dams, restoring natural water movement and displacement. It benefits all manner of ecology and industry alike, and something GNN would expect to continue through the decades to come.
SPLASH This Good Earth Story Over On Your Friends Social Medias…
Prince William is selling 20% of the Duchy of Cornwell estate to fund affordable housing and nature projects over the next decade.
Established by King Edward III in 1337, the vast private estate spans 128,000 acres across 19 counties to provide the heir to the British throne with an independent income, which today amounts to some £20 million annually.
The title of Duke of Cornwall and the ownership of the estate automatically pass to the eldest living son of the reigning monarch. The current Duke is Prince William, son of King Charles III, who expects the sale to generate half a billion sterling, or around $669 million, to spend on local communities living around that vast acreage.
“We’re not the traditional landowner… we want to be more than that. There is so much good we can do,” said Prince William to the London Times. “I’m trying to make sure I’m prioritizing stuff that’s going to make people’s lives, living in those areas, better.”
This was echoed by the Duchy’s chief executive Will Baxter, who said the estate “should exist to make a positive impact, particularly in the communities where we can make the biggest difference.”
The Times reported that the offloading seems to be currently planned for Duchy property in Bath, Cornwall, Dartmoor, the Isles of Scilly, and Kennington in south London. Early estimates are that it could lead to 12,000 housing units by 2040, about one-third of which are expected to be affordable for the lowest income brackets.
Much of the estate’s lands are in rural areas, so money and attention will be devoted to reviving rural economies and communities, as well as developing environmental value in the form of carbon storage potential in peat bogs, woodland, and wetlands.
ROYALTY TIMES:
Both the BBC and the Times noted that criticism of royal finance has increased, particularly since the scandal involving Prince Andrew, and has led to the first review of royal property financing since 2012. It is expected to see a reduction.
Prince William was voted the most popular member of the British monarchy back in 2017 according to a poll by YouGov, and with a magnanimous focus and gestures like this, in contrast to “plaques and patronages” must certainly contribute to that.
SHARE This Story Of A Monarchy Staying Relevant And Useful…
Since 2023, the price of gold has more than doubled, turning people’s spare jewelry or heirlooms into valuable assets—in many cases without them even fully realizing it.
At the current spot price of $4,500 an ounce, anything above 18 karats is suddenly of substantial value. Pieces bought by one’s parents and grandparents in the 60s and 70s when an ounce of gold was worth between $35 and $200 per ounce could be close to ten grand at current prices.
Indian-American entrepreneur Sidhi Singhvi, who’s career has involved working across a variety of financial markets, including investment grade jewelry, recently co-created a unique-in-the-world fintech platform called Unvault that allows people to create a portfolio out of their jewelry that they can track and observe as if they were looking at stocks or bonds.
“Unvault is a way to understand the value of your jewelry that is locked in drawers and completely out of your thoughts,” Singhvi told GNN’s Andy Corbley in a telephone interview.
“It’s your first line of defense to understand a little bit about the asset you own. We put it in a portfolio for you, so think about a Robinhood for your jewelry, where you can see the value of it change with the values on the market.”
Users upload photos of their jewelry to Unvault, which then uses artificial intelligence to inspect the piece and generate a valuation, which will then be plugged into the user’s portfolio, allowing them to see its market value when they want, or just make it easy to include in a household audit.
“I always found it strange that gold, which is a huge asset class and an asset class that’s owned by half the houses in the US, doesn’t benefit from the infrastructure we have for Bitcoin, for example,” she said.
As December 2025 turned into January 2026, the price of gold and particularly silver went “parabolic” as the investment phrase goes, rising almost vertically to $5,600, and picking up considerable public interest along the way which Singhvi noted.
“I believe this is gold’s shining moment, not only with what’s reflected in the pricing but also in the sentiment that we see: that customers are more and more aware of gold pricing, in the daily movements of gold, they’re into tracking, they want to know the value of what they own, and I think that’s a very good moment for us and something like Unvault.”
With 4.9 out of 5 stars on Trust Pilot, including 165 five-star reviews, Unvault is rapidly gaining in popularity. Along with gold, it also offers valuations of silver and gemstones.
Users report receiving substantially higher valuations for their unwanted jewelry than at pawnshops or even neighborhood jewelers that work in the resale market.
Maria from San Francisco wrote that Unvault valued her grandmother’s jewelry at $8,000, and though she didn’t choose to sell, it convinced her to take out an insurance policy on it.
Others love that they can watch the price go up and down based on movements in the market and sell their pieces without taking the risk of negotiating with a dishonest or unscrupulous merchant.
“If you want to sell to us, you can sell to us,” Singhvi said, acknowledging that it’s not a guarantee that local buyers would agree with an Unvault valuation.
“It’s okay if the jewelers or the pawnbrokers don’t want to use it, we didn’t build it for them. We built it for people who have jewelry and who have no idea, and who don’t want to go to a pawnshop or a jeweler and get paid $100 for their piece that could be worth thousands. We built it for them to get some answers quickly, from their home, from their couch even.”
JP Morgan’s price forecast for gold this year is $6,300 per ounce, implying both that there could be another 30% to run, and no better time to look through the jewelry box and revisit old pieces that may have lost their shine.
SHARE This Great Service With Your Friends Who May Have Old Jewelry…
In the far-eastern Indian state of Nagaland, locals are protecting mainland Asia’s largest tortoise species, an animal they used to hunt.
Governments around the world struggle to effectively govern or manage their frontier borderlands, and few borderlands feel as frontier as Nagaland, being more than two-day’s drive from New Delhi on the border with Myanmar and Nepal, and populated by diverse ethnic groups speaking diverse languages.
But this is now proving to be a strength, not an impediment, as local tribal reserves replace government reserves as the reintroduction sites for the tortoise, and local youths replace professional conservationists as the scaly animal’s “guardians.”
The Critically-Endangered Asian giant tortoise was heading towards population collapse and extinction until the Nagaland Zoological Park began a captive breeding program that saved the population.
Shailendra Singh, Director of the Turtle Survival Alliance Foundation India which oversees the animal’s reintroduction along with the Nagaland Forest Department, explains that the program started with 13 turtles, some of which were seized from Nagaland markets where they were destined to be eaten, and others that had been kept as pets.
“The program reached its turning point when some villagers voluntarily donated tortoises they had kept as pets in their homes for captive breeding, and the community that once exploited them was sensitized to restore and nurture the species back in the wild from the brink,” Singh told the Relevator.
From those 13 tortoises, 7 female and 6 male, 114 individuals have been born—half as many as the entire wild population in all of Asia, according to some estimates. Previous reintroduction efforts by the federal government failed both to protect the tortoises or to keep track of them.
By contrast, the over 100 tortoises released into the Nagaland tribal reserves—small but numerous—are closely tracked by young men and women trained in basic conservation strategies.
This almost one-to-one involvement by locals creates a unique attachment to the animal.
“We started by simply tracking them, but today we realize how important they are in keeping our forest vibrant and alive with their unique ways,” says Iteichube, a 33-year-old resident of the 370-hectare Old Jalukie Conservation Reserve.
LEVERAGING THE LOCALS: Spectacular New Species Found in Cambodia’s Limestone Caves–Asia’s ‘Little Laboratories’
80% of Nagaland territory is made up of these community forest reserves. There are 407 of them, amounting to 50% of all such reserves in India.
Iteichube proudly wears an olive drab t-shirt labeled “Tortoise Guardian” when he leaves home at 8 a.m. every morning to go look for signs of the tortoises’ activity. Nibbled leaves and depressed ground indicate foraging behavior.
The Asian giant tortoise displays a unique-in-the-world nesting strategy by building a mound of leaves between 2 and 7 feet in height in laying its eggs therein.
TORTOISE CONSERVATION: 158 Giant Endangered Tortoises Released on Galápagos Island Where They’d Been Extinct for 180 Years
The success of the Nagaland model is now hopefully going to be replicated in the neighboring state of Manipur, which recently hatched their first clutch of artificially incubated Asian giant tortoises at the Manipur Zoological Gardens.
Local elders told the Revelator stories of whiling away their childhood riding these tortoises along the forest paths, and that these days are long gone. Perhaps they spoke too soon. Thanks to this collaboration between zoo and community, the next generation of these forest dwelling communities may recapture this storybook privilege.
SHARE This Great Conservation Story From Far Eastern India…
Quote of the Day: “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.” – Winston Churchill
Photo by: Winslow Homer’s 1872 masterpiece, Snap the Whip (cropped)
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
115 years ago today, the world’s first national park department, Parks Canada, was established, 5 years before its counterpart in the US Today they manage the country’s 48 National Parks, 3 National Marine Conservation Areas, 172 National Historic Sites, 1 National Urban Park, and 1 National Landmark. Parks Canada is mandated to “protect and present nationally significant examples of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage, and foster public understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment in ways that ensure their ecological and commemorative integrity for present and future generations.” WATCH a video montage of all the land they oversee… (1911)
