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Welcome to eco@africa

November 10, 2017

On this week's eco@africa, we see how climate change can promote democracy, find a good use for coffee grounds and visit an architect who is reviving an ancient African construction technique. All this and more!

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DW eco@africa — Nneota Egbe
Image: DW

This week on eco@africa we travel across Africa and Europe to bring you the latest and most innovative ideas to help make our world a greener place.

We start in Senegal where climate change is uniting some of the country's poorest people and promoting democracy. Rising sea levels are destroying land by making it too salty. But a women's cooperative is taking its destiny into its own hands and planting grass and trees to take back the land and make it once again fertile.

After that we interview Fredrick Ouma from the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change. His group has brought together youth organizations from dozens of different African nations in a bid to work together to see climate change as an opportunity to promote an entrepreneurial culture.

Then we visit a French mason and a farmer from Burkina Faso who have revived an ancient African construction technique — the Nubian vault — using only organic materials. The resulting homes in Mali, Burkina Faso and Senegal are as elegant as they are eco-friendly.

In Germany we have a look at how one industrial designer has found a sustainable use for coffee waste and is making coffee cups in one of the world's biggest consumers of coffee.

Back in Africa we follow rangers in Mozambique who are part of the largest-ever transfer of wild animals in Africa. Over the next three years they will try to repopulate the Zinave National Park by introducing thousands of animals from several neighboring countries.

And finally, we visit an eco village in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. It offers green homes for locals and is slated to become an environmentally friendly model that helps to ease the country's housing crisis.

Check out the show and let us know what you think at eco@africa.com.