An unlikely hero of 2021

[View in browser]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter]( December 22, 2021 Good afternoon. Thanks so much for sending in all your book recommendations. Abigail and I are still sorting through them, but hopefully we'll have a bunch published in the coming week. I was really pleased to see that a few of you agreed with me that Crossroads is one of the best books of the year (shoutout to my fellow Franzenites John and Pamela). But many of you also pointed me toward some really great suggestions that hadn't been on my radar, including George Stewart's Storm and Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass. I'm going to change topics now to focus on some other end-of-year features we've published on the site. In Monday's (rather gloomy) newsletter about Joe Manchin and Build Back Better, I promised that I'd make an effort to share some better news as the week progressed. Today, I intend to make good on that commitment by discussing one of Mother Jones' heroes of 2021: Fernanda the giant tortoise. As my colleague Jackie Mogensen [wrote](, Fernanda is a member of Chelonoidis phantasticus, a species of giant tortoise, native to the Galapagos, that had last been in seen in 1906 and was believed to be extinct. Fernanda is about 100 years old, but that's only middle-aged in tortoise years. Now, all she needs to do to save her species is mate, and scientists are scouring the island looking for a possible male companion. I'll end with Jackie's (in my opinion) very compelling case why Fernanda deserves a spot on the annual heroes list: "There is, quite possibly, no organism as friendless as Fernanda the giant tortoise...It’s possible she had been wandering her 245-square-mile island with no real companions to speak of (as far as we know) for more than a century. And now she has been tasked with saving her species. If that doesn’t scream hero, I don’t know what does." —Noah Y. Kim Advertisement [Tisbest]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [Hero: Fernanda the Tortoise, Whose Species Everyone Thought Was Extinct]( At 100 years old, the Galapagos resident went from assumed-to-be-dead to the world's most eligible tortoise. BY JACKIE FLYNN MOGENSEN SPONSORED POST [Sponsored Content]( [Farmers Are Seeding a Regenerative Future]( Faced with the realities of climate change, farmers are implementing regenerative agriculture to weather the storm. THIS CONTENT WAS PAID FOR AND SPONSORED BY [AMERICAN FARMLAND TRUST](. [Trending] [The Biden administration is ramping up its Omicron response]( BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG [The mother of all vaccines may be closer than you think]( BY JACKIE FLYNN MOGENSEN [How Minnesota’s foster care system reminds Native moms of a racist legacy]( BY JESSICA WASHINGTON [Monsters of 2021: The idiots defacing our national parks]( BY STEPHANIE MENCIMER Advertisement [Tisbest]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [“They Just Came and Started Breaking Houses”]( After our investigation prompted action in Congress, a major Dominican sugar exporter razed workers' homes as US diplomats drew near. BY SANDY TOLAN [Help Protect Democracy] Read Monika Bauerlein’s fearless column, “[What if Media Covered the War on Democracy Like an Actual War?](,” and please consider supporting Mother Jones’ hard-hitting journalism with a year-end donation to help us reach our urgent $350,000 December goal and keep charging hard in 2022. [Donate]( Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by [forwarding]( it to a friend or sharing it on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755