▲The country passed a law that makes it illegal for whales, dolphins, and porpoises to be bred or held in captivity.

▲The Netherlands has become the first country in the world without stray dogs.

▲Pet stores in California can now only sell rescue cats, dogs, and rabbits.

▲A chain supermarket in Thailand has swapped plastic packaging for banana leaves.

▲A man in London became the second person in the world to be cleared from the HIV virus, following a stem cell treatment.

▲Seven eggs from the world's last northern white rhinos were successfully fertilized. Which means the species might survive extinction.

▲Blood donors in Sweden get a text when their blood saves a life.

▲The sea turtle population has increased by a whooping 980% since the Endangered Species Act regulations were enforced.

▲Norway decided not to drill for oil in the Lofoten Islands, to preserve the local ecosystem.

▲A robot is restoring the damaged areas of the Great Barrier of Reef by delivering coral babies.

▲Finnish scientists have developed a vaccine that helps fight against a deadly bacterial disease in bees.

▲A San Francisico organization is bringing together senior citizens and senior dogs.

▲Piplantri, a village in India, celebrates each time a girl is born by planting 111 trees.

▲Scientists discovered a mushroom that feeds on plastic.

▲Hundreds of bus stops in the Netherlands have been covered in plants. The green roofs are supposed to aid the preservation of bees.

▲Baby African elephants will no longer be taken from the wild and sold to zoos.

▲The online platform implemented a ban on white supremacist content and other hateful material.

▲In 2017, villagers in India knitted giant sweaters by hand to protect rescue elephants from the cold. This has been all over social media in 2019, to raise awareness about global warming.

▲In March, 4,855 people waited in the rain for hours to see if they were compatible stem cell donors for with a five-year-old boy battling cancer.

▲A seven-mile-long "bee corridor" of flowers is being planted in London, UK, to help boost bee numbers.

▲The population has grown from 440 in 1958 to around 25,000 today.

▲South Korea went from a 2% recycling rate to a whopping 95% in food waste recycling. All thanks to smart bins and biodegradable bags.

▲A scientist in Mexico created a biodegradable plastic from the juice of a cactus.

▲NASA has reported that our planet is greener now than it was 20 years ago. This is due mostly to reforestation efforts from China and India.

▲The UK has now the lowest CO2 emissions since 1888.

▲Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriages.

▲A study found that dog's evolved sense of smell can detect cancer in blood.

▲Scientists managed to convert type A blood into universal donor blood, type O.

▲Galapagos iguanas have been reintroduced to Santiago Island after 200 years.

▲

The Dutch built five artificial islands to preserve flora and fauna.

▲Researchers found that feeding cows with a specific type of seaweed reduces greenhouse gas emission drastically.

▲Renewable energy now accounts for a third of global power capacity.

▲The AfDB is supporting projects to bring electricity to millions of people across the continent.

▲The government has started organizing daytime dance parties for senior citizens.

▲Tim Sweeney has bought hundreds of acres of forest land in North Carolina, US, in order to preserve it.

▲Jadav Payeng, known as the Forest Man of India, spent over 30 years planting a tree everyday to save his island. The forest is now bigger than New York City's Central Park.

▲Rice farmers started using ducks instead of pesticides. The animals feed on insects and protect the fields.

▲Peru passed a ban on palm oil deforestation. The National Wildlife Federation called it a "momentous win for wildlife and sustainable agriculture."

▲Parents in Lagos, Nigeria, can pay part of their children's tuition fees with plastic bottles.

▲Circus Roncalli in Germany started using hologram projections instead of real animals in their shows.

▲The Waorani, an indigenous tribe from Ecuador, won a legal battle that protects the Amazon rain forest from oil drilling.

▲The initiative is called +Ricicli +Viaggi (recycle and travel). For every bottle you put in the machine, you get a €0.05 credit.

▲

American Karen Uhlenbeck won one of mathematics most prestigious awards—the Abel Prize.

Photo: Wikimedia / GFDL

▲

Malawi's paramount chief, Theresa Kachindamoto, annulled over 2,500 child marriages and sent all children back to school.

(Photo: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0)

▲Iceland became the first country in the world to legally enforce equal pay.

▲Blind and visually impaired women in Colombia have been trained to detect breast cancer using their fingertips.

▲

It's not all doom and gloom. Our world is full of wonderful things and humans are indeed capable of accomplishing incredible feats.

We're constantly bombarded with bad news in the media, so it's easy to forget about all the good things that happen around the globe. With that in mind, we've compiled a list of some of the most positive news of the year, inspired by The Happy Broadcast.

It's now time to look at the bright side of life. A side that does not always makes the headlines, but one that should be celebrated more often.

Click through the gallery, and be amazed by the wonderful things that happened in 2019.