Monthly Optimism Roundup for January 2024

25 January 2024

From Brazil to Bratislava, people everywhere are taking positive action

Our first Optimism Roundup of 2024 is here and this month’s features two Earthshot Prize Finalists!

Learn about Belterra and Boomitra’s game-changing partnerships, Paris’ plans to green the city, billions pledged to protect mangroves and roads made using a surprising, recycled material.

Read on for your dose of positive news from around the world 👇

PROTECT AND RESTORE NATURE

Belterra enters £15 million partnership with Amazon to scale forest regeneration

E-commerce giant Amazon have joined forces with 2023 Finalist Belterra to help more Brazilian smallholders move away from damaging monoculture farming and adopt regenerative techniques that help lock harmful carbon emissions in the ground.

The partnership will not only restore the land but help Belterra develop a carbon offsetting scheme which can provide new sources of income to farmers.

CLEAN OUR AIR

Paris to plant first ‘urban forest’ on a busy city roundabout

Nearly 500 trees are being planted on the busy Place de Catalogne roundabout to tackle air pollution in the French capital. The city’s first “urban forest” is to open in June with similar sites intended around the Paris as part of their goal to plant 170,000 trees by 2026.

500 trees are being planted on the busy Place de Catalogne roundabout to tackle air pollution in Paris

REVIVE OUR OCEANS

Billions of dollars committed to protect mangroves around the world

Thanks to the work of the Mangrove Alliance, more than 40 government, financial, NGO and indigenous organisations have agreed a $4 billion pledge to conserve 15 million hectares of mangrove by 2030.

Despite covering just 0.1% of the world’s surface, mangrove forests are crucial for ocean biodiversity, carbon storage and protecting against the effects of climate change.

BUILD A WASTE-FREE WORLD

Slovakian capital to recycle cigarettes to create roads

Often containing thousands of chemicals, discarded cigarette butts can be extremely toxic to the environment. To tackle this issue, Bratislava is pioneering a new way to recycle them.

Used cigarettes and vapes collected at public events are processed to separate the filters and converted into a new type of fibre that can be added to asphalt mixtures.

Bratislava transforming cigarette butts into road asphalt

FIX OUR CLIMATE

Boomitra empowers thousands of Indian tea farmers to become more sustainable

2023 Earthshot Prize Winner Boomitra has joined up with the Tea Research Association to help more than 1,000 large tea estates and over 200,000 small tea growers adopt regenerative agriculture processes that lock in planet-warming carbon in the soil.

Keep an eye on our channels for all the latest optimism from around the world, including updates from our amazing Finalists.

Got some news you want to shout about? Share on social media using #TheEarthshotPrize

Sign up to our newsletter for more like this

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

Necessary

Always Enabled

Analytics

Others

Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.

Cookie	Duration	Description
504aocz6	5 days	Description is currently not available.
9k2l13l0	5 days	Description is currently not available.
f4c4bnfg	5 days	Description is currently not available.
VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA	6 months	Description is currently not available.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_tt_enable_cookie	1 year 24 days	Tiktok set this cookie to collect data about behaviour and activities on the website and to measure the effectiveness of the advertising.
_ttp	1 year 24 days	TikTok set this cookie to track and improve the performance of advertising campaigns, as well as to personalise the user experience.
fr	3 months	Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites with Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE	1 year 24 days	Google DoubleClick IDE cookies store information about how the user uses the website to present them with relevant ads according to the user profile.
test_cookie	15 minutes	doubleclick.net sets this cookie to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	6 months	YouTube sets this cookie to measure bandwidth, determining whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
YSC	session	Youtube sets this cookie to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.
yt-remote-connected-devices	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-device-id	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt.innertube::nextId	never	YouTube sets this cookie to register a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
yt.innertube::requests	never	YouTube sets this cookie to register a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.