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From scientific discoveries to activist wins, here are the latest news stories that showcase the people who are taking on climate change and nature loss, and winning.

🛳️ The ex-captain turned anti-cruise campaigner

Guillaume Picard used to steer cruise ships – until he saw the damage they were doing to the ocean near his home of Marseille, where a staggering 2.5m passengers disembarked last year. Now he’s joined a crew of activists called Stop Croisières, or Stop Cruises, part of a growing movement against these energy-hungry behemoths. The group has carried out numerous actions delaying cruise ships from entering Marseille and drawing attention to their toll on the planet.

 “I certainly feel guilty,” he says. “It’s guilt for having participated in the destruction of life. But maybe that is the engine that makes me an activist now.”

🇺🇳 How to fix COP

COP has once again been bitterly disappointing for low-income countries, as parties agreed to only a fraction of the climate finance they see as fair. But what changes might make this process actually work? Here, a long-time participant offers some suggestions, including:

• Devolving the COP process to smaller regional meetings, which could happen more often than once a year

• Rather than wasting time getting the most reluctant countries onboard, gather more ambitious countries who truly want to drive progress 

• Shutting out oil states from climate talks altogether

🗡️ Safeguarding swordfish

New fishing rules for Atlantic swordfish have been celebrated by campaigners as a way to secure the future of this fish, which almost went extinct in the 1990s. While swordfish numbers have recovered over recent years, it’ll be safeguarded by this new harvest strategy – constantly calibrated rules about how much parties can fish a certain species, based on whether it’s in danger at that moment.