Where the Chao Phraya meets the sea, the coast loses 20 to 60 metres of land a year. In a 15-month trial at 11 sites in Samut Prakan, Chulalongkorn University placed structures that mimic mangrove roots: at 10 of them they trapped between 16 and 88 centimetres of sediment. An independent expert warns it is not a permanent fix, but a way to help the mangroves come back.
The United Nations has named the work of the NGO WeForest and local communities in Ethiopia's Desa'a forest, between Tigray and Afar, a World Restoration Flagship. More than 23,000 hectares are under restoration and nearly 16,000 job opportunities have been created, 60% of them for women. The caveat: the forest once covered about 154,000 hectares, and the 2030 target is 38,000.
Melina Nisenbaum, a CONICET researcher at the National University of Mar del Plata, has won the 2026 Franco-Argentine Innovation Award (junior category) for a process that feeds brewery waste, coffee grounds, yerba mate and gin pomace to bacteria that make cellulose, the basis of a kind of bio-leather. The caveat: the process works in the lab and still has to be scaled up.
Photo: GOGLA
Planet · EnergyPhoto: CSIC
Planet · OceansPhoto: MITECO
Planet · CountrysidePhoto: INPROS group (TEP-982) · University of Granada
Planet · Circular economyPhoto: © UNEP/Frank Papushka
Planet · RestorationPhoto: © The Wildlife Trusts
Planet · NaturePhoto: PolyGone Systems
Planet · OceansPhoto: Courtesy of the researchers / CONICET
Planet · Oceans
