Human trafficking: 6 solutions that are working

A new law seeks to protect vulnerable guest workers and unwary businesses from unscrupulous recruiters by requiring them to register with the state and meet certain requirements.

Seaweed is a sustainable and nutritious food source, which could be a solution to feeding a growing global population—the tricks getting people to eat it. Several Dutch companies are serving up seaweed in familiar formats like burgers, pasta, and falafel to make it an easier sell. They're also pioneering infrastructure to make farmed seaweed affordable.

Around the world, farmers are turning to permaculture and agrodiversity to create higher yields than chemical fertilizer while also avoiding the negative effects of conventional farming's focus on monocrop. Although results aren't fully conclusive, evidence does point to the success of low-impact farming strategies.

Attitudes towards the legalization of sex work are changing around the world, and now some cities have even started considering public spaces for sex work while developing urban infrastructure plans. From Cologne, Germany (where there are "sex drive-throughs" that are equipped with safety features, facilities for rest, and toilets for the workers) to Amsterdam (where they are developing new rules for window-based sex work), governments are now increasingly inviting sex workers and their representatives to the negotiating table.

In service industries that traditionally pay and treat workers poorly, worker-owned cooperatives serve as a humane alternative. Worker-owners at eight co-ops in four states describe the difference their jobs make in their working conditions and their lives. They also tell how larger collectives and cooperatives pool resources to help smaller co-ops with the funding and expertise they need, especially when confronted by a disruptive event like the pandemic.

Farmers in Vietnam face rising sea levels but rejected the city's water engineering projects. They prefer gradual measures to cope with climate change so scientists have allowed the farmers to steer the conversation.

During the Industrial Revolution, farmers began harvesting monoculture crops which produced promising profits but proved harmful to the soil and weakened the immune capabilities of native plants. Lately, however, permaculture practices have been on the rise amongst farmers to better diversify their yields and reduce reliance on chemicals.

Fruit farmers in the Pacific Northwest are implementing mitigation strategies like shade, produce coatings, and water misters to protect their crops from extreme heat.

A grassroots campaign to encourage more environmentally sustainable diets called the Plant Based Treaty is picking up support across the globe. Pledgers make their own decisions on how to best take action.

When organic materials like wood chips and manure are heated in the absence of oxygen they create a black powdery substance called biochar. This material prevents the release of carbon into the atmosphere from the natural decaying process. And it has other beneficial uses like improving soil fertility, too.