Extinction isn’t like leaving for a long trip or studying abroad. When it happens, there’s no coming back. The moment a species disappears, it takes with it millions of years of evolution and an irreplaceable thread in the fabric of life on Earth. That’s it. Bye! Gone forever.

Which is why what happened on February 20, on a remote volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean feels so extraordinary.

A species that, by all accounts, should have been extinct returned home. That morning, rangers on Floreana Island in Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands set down their packs and gently placed 158 juvenile giant tortoises onto the wet ground—the first of their lineage to set foot on the island in roughly 175 years.

These animals weren’t supposed to exist. Their subspecies was declared extinct in the 1850s. The forces that wiped them out—overhunting, invasive predators, habitat destruction—are exactly the kinds that usually can’t be reversed. But this time, somehow, they have been.

First, here’s what was lost

Long ago—before whalers, settlers, feral cats, and invasive rats—Floreana Island was home to as many as 20,000 giant tortoises. These weren’t just large, slow animals living out their days in the sun. They were ecosystem engineers that carved trails through the vegetation, swallowed whole fruits and deposited seeds miles away, planting forests with every lumbering step. The island’s entire web of life depended on these tortoises.

Then the whalers came.

In the 1800s, passing ships discovered that giant tortoises were essentially the perfect food supply for long sea voyages. They could survive in a ship’s hold for months without food or water. A single vessel could haul away 700 tortoises in one visit. Altogether, passing ships took an estimated 100,000 tortoises from across the Galápagos.

And then, sometime around 1850, the Floreana tortoise was simply…gone. On top of that, humans had brought rats, cats, dogs, goats, and pigs with them—devastating the surrounding environment. These new animals destroyed native vegetation and ate tortoise eggs. A massive wildfire in 1820 didn’t help either.

By the time anyone thought to do something, it was too late. Or so everyone thought.

In 2008, scientists exploring Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island noticed something strange. Some of the tortoises had an unusual shell shape: the unique saddleback shell associated with Floreana.

They conducted DNA tests, and the results were nearly unbelievable. These tortoises carried the genetic fingerprint of the “extinct” Floreana lineage.

It turns out that centuries earlier, those same whalers who had stripped Floreana of its tortoises had occasionally offloaded live tortoises onto Isabela Island, as provisions to be retrieved later or to lighten their ships. Some of those tortoises survived, bred, and passed their genes on for nearly 200 years.

The Floreana tortoise had been hiding in plain sight the whole time.

Scientists sprang into action. They selected 23 hybrid tortoises from Wolf Volcano that showed the strongest Floreana genetic signal and brought them to a breeding center on Santa Cruz Island. Starting in 2017, they carefully bred them over generations, patiently guiding their lineage back toward its original form.

By 2025, they had more than 600 hatchlings.

Dr. Jen Jones, chief executive of the Galápagos Conservation Trust, described the moment as “truly spine-tingling,” adding that it validated two decades of collaboration among scientists, charities, and the local community.

But wait—they didn’t just show up and release tortoises

Before a single tortoise set foot on Floreana, the island needed years of preparation.

Remember, Floreana had been overrun with invasive rats and feral cats, the same forces that drove the tortoises to extinction in the first place. They needed to go. In October 2023, the Floreana tortoise team launched a massive eradication campaign with helicopters, aerial baiting, and ground traps.

Oh, and here’s a crucial aspect that’s often overlooked: the island’s approximately 150 residents were actively involved in this endeavor, not mere spectators.

Before the baiting began, community members set up protective enclosures for their pets to prevent harm. Farmers adapted their agricultural practices to best serve the project. Locals also helped with the trapping.

The results were almost immediate. Native Galápagos rails—small birds that disappeared from the island entirely because of rat predation—have already started coming back on their own. Nature, it turns out, is extremely ready to bounce back the moment you give it a chance.

And they’re watching every step

Each of the 158 released tortoises carries a GPS tracker that pings its location every hour via satellite.

On top of that, NASA Earth observation data is overlaid to map vegetation, rainfall, and soil conditions across the island. Scientists use all of this information to build habitat models that can project ecosystem conditions decades into the future, which matters a lot when you’re dealing with an animal that can live over a century.

The plan is to release 25 to 100 more tortoises each year, with each group’s release location guided by data on where current tortoises are thriving. Slow and steady. Rather fitting, really.

This is just the beginning

The 158 tortoises are Phase One of a plan to reintroduce 12 locally extinct species to Floreana over the coming decade. Next up? The Floreana mockingbird, a fascinating species that arguably inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution when he visited the island in 1835. Sadly, it now only exists on two tiny offshore islets.

After that: Darwin’s finches, Galápagos racer snakes, the lava gull (the world’s rarest gull), and, eventually, the Galápagos hawk, the apex predator whose return would signal a fully restored food chain.

Each species added to the island increases the likelihood that the next will succeed. That’s how ecosystems work. And honestly, it’s a pretty good lesson for the rest of life.

Music, community and joy drive real change

In a small village in Pwani, a district on Tanzania’s coast, a massive dance party is coming to a close. For the past two hours, locals have paraded through the village streets, singing and beating ngombe drums; now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheilla motions for everyone to sit facing a large projector screen. A film premiere is about to begin. 

It’s an unusual way to kick off a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage, and other barriers that prevent girls from accessing education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pura are finding creative, culturally relevant ways like this one to capture people’s interest. 

The film ends and Sheilla, the Communications and Partnership Lead for Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands in front of the crowd once again, asking the audience to reflect: What did you think about the film? How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn? 

Sheilla explains that, once the community sees the film, “It brings out conversations within themselves, reflective conversations.” The resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.

Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This and other barriers — including child marriage, poverty, conflict, and discrimination — prevent girls from completing their education around the world. 

Sheilla and her team are using film and radio programs to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA’s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for everyone, and to ensure that every member of a community understands how girls’ education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally for their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends. 

Sheilla’s story is one of many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful, joyful twist. Here’s how Pura is using scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.

A partnership focused on local impact, on a global mission

Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. In order to defend every girl’s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where the educational barriers are the greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that those who are closest to the problems are best equipped to solve and build durable solutions, like MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about their education. 

But local initiatives can thrive and scale more powerfully with global support, which is why Pura is using their own superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world with the women and girls in these local communities. 

The Pura x Malala Fund Collection incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil: countries where Malala Fund operates to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection will be donated to Malala Fund directly, but beyond financial support, the Collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes like lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to transport people, ignite their senses, and help them draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls’ education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy, and tenacity of girls and local leaders, all while uniting in a shared commitment to education: the belief that supporting girls’ rights in one community benefits all of us, everywhere. 

You’ve already met Sheilla. Now see how Naiara and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to ensure every girl can learn freely and dare to dream.

Naiara Leite is reimagining what’s possible in Brazil

In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the Northeastern Coast, girls like ten-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Too often, racial discrimination contributes to high dropout rates among Black, quilombola and Indigenous girls in the country. 

“In the logic of Brazilian society, Black people don’t need to study,” says Naiara Leite, Executive Coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and Malala Fund partner. Bahia, the state where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-receiving territories in the Americas, and because of that history, deeply-ingrained, anti-Black prejudice is still widespread. “Our role and the image constructed around us is one of manual labor,” Naiara says. 

But education can change that. In 2020, with assistance from a Malala Fund grant, Odara launched its first initiative for improving school completion rates among Black, quilombola, and Indigenous girls: “Ayomidê Odara”. The young girls mentored under the program, including Julia, are known as the Ayomidês. And like the Pura x Malala Fund Collection’s Brazil: Breath of Courage scent, the Ayomidês are fierce, determined, and bursting with energy.

Ayomidês take part in weekly educational sessions where they explore subjects like education and ethnic-racial relations. The girls are encouraged to find their own voices by producing Instagram lives, social media videos, and by participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomidês are rewriting the narrative on what’s possible for Afro-Brazilian girls to achieve. One of the earliest Ayomidês, a young woman named Debora, is now a communications intern. Another former Ayomidê, Francine, works at UNICEF, helping train the next generation of adolescent leaders. And Julia has already set her sights on becoming a math teacher or a model. 

“These are generations of Black women who did not have access to a school,” Naiara says. “These are generations of Black women robbed daily of their dreams. And we’re telling them that they could be the generation in their family to write a new story.” 

Mama Habiba is reframing the conversation in Nigeria 

In Mama Habiba’s home country of Nigeria, the scents of starfruit, ylang ylang and pineapple, all incorporated into the Pura x Malala Collection’s “Nigeria: Hope for Tomorrow,” can be found throughout the vibrant markets. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says that the Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their potential fully blooms. 

​​“Some of these schools are very far, and there is an issue of quality, too,” Mama Habiba says. “Most parents find out when their children are in school, the girls are not learning. So why allow them to continue?” 

When girls drop out of secondary school, marriage is often the alternative. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. When this happens, girls are unable to fulfill their potential, and their families and communities lose out on the social, health and economic benefits.

Completing secondary school delays marriage, and according to UNESCO, educated girls become women who raise healthier children, lift their families out of poverty and contribute to more peaceful, resilient communities.

To encourage young girls to stay in school, the Centre for Girls’ Education, a nonprofit in Nigeria founded by Mama Habiba and supported by Malala Fund and Pura, has pioneered an initiative that’s similar to the Ayomidê workshops in Brazil: safe spaces. Here, girls meet regularly to learn literacy, numeracy, and other issues like reproductive health. These safe spaces also provide an opportunity for the girls to role-play and learn to advocate for themselves, develop their self-image, and practice conversations with others about their values, education being one of them. In safe spaces, Mama Habiba says, girls start to understand “who she is, and that she is a girl who has value. She has the right to negotiate with her parents on what she really feels or wants.”

“When girls are educated, they can unlock so many opportunities,” Mama Habiba says. “It will help the economy of the country. It will boost so many opportunities for the country. If they are given the opportunity, I think the sky is not the limit. It is the starting point for every girl.”  

From parades, film screenings to safe spaces and educational programs, girls and local leaders are working hard to strengthen the quality, safety and accessibility of education and overcome systemic challenges. They are encouraging courageous behavior and reminding us all that education is freedom.

Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.

Dogs are considered invaluable police helpers for their tracking abilities. But performing CPR? That’s certainly not on anyone’s bingo card. 

However, footage released on X by Madrid Municipal Police shows a dog named Poncho doing just that, or at least performing CPR in a training simulation.

​​In the clip, an officer pretends to faint, triggering Poncho to rush to the rescue. Wearing a harness fitted with a small blue light, Poncho quickly begins jumping on the officer’s chest with his forepaws, mimicking chest compressions. After every few jumps, he appears to check for a pulse or breath before continuing the drill.

By the end, the officer miraculously jumps up, and Poncho’s tail wags in gleeful triumph.

Watch Poncho perform CPR:

View this post on Instagram

The Municipal Police of Madrid wrote that the “heroic” dog “did not hesitate for a moment to ‘save the life’ of the agent, practicing the #CPR in a masterful way.”

Adorable? Definitely. Effective? Eh, not so much.

As many were quick to point out in the comments, this “masterful” performance is certainly heartwarming, but it likely wouldn’t hold up in a real emergency.

While CPR, or cardiopulmonary........

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