Three winners receive $10,000 each in seed funding as awards attract a record 487 applications from 91 countries, half from Africa
By Bunmi Yekini
Projects from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sierra Leone have won the 2026 OceanLove Innovation Awards for initiatives aimed at restoring marine ecosystems, protecting coral reefs and tackling coastal erosion.
The three winners, announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles on October 11, will each receive $10,000 in seed funding, a year of expert coaching and international media exposure to help advance their projects.
The awards attracted a record 487 applications from 91 countries, with half coming from Africa and 73% from the Global South, according to the Netherlands-based volunteer-run non-profit organisation.
The number of applications represents an increase of almost 90% from 2025 and nearly six times the total received in 2024.
The winning initiatives span three categories: The Blue Circle, Living Sea and WaveMakers, recognising innovations in pollution control, marine biodiversity protection and community-led ocean education.
Under the Living Sea category, Md. Ashif Imam Khan of Bangladesh won with GoldenRoots, a project using locally woven jute mats to restore mangroves in the Sundarbans.
The initiative seeks to address coastal erosion in the UNESCO World Heritage site, where rising sea levels and increasingly intense cyclones threaten mangrove ecosystems.
The biodegradable mats, made from locally sourced jute, are embedded with sediment and native mangrove seedlings to prevent tides from washing away young plants before their roots become established.
The project also creates income opportunities for coastal women who weave the mats, while avoiding the microplastic pollution associated with synthetic materials used in some restoration efforts.
In the WaveMakers category, Noortasha Devi Paramaswaran of Indonesia and Malaysia won for GaiaOne Coral Academy, a 10-month training programme designed to equip women with professional skills in coral reef restoration.
The initiative combines diving certification, specialist coral restoration training and paid internships, enabling participants to move from learning conservation techniques to working professionally on reef restoration.
Its organisers say the programme addresses both coral reef degradation and the barriers that prevent women from accessing training and employment in marine conservation.
The Blue Circle award went to Josée Dancause of Monaco for her project, “What If Sargassum Could Give Back?”, which is being piloted in Belize.
The project seeks to transform excessive Sargassum seaweed, which accumulates along Caribbean coastlines, into a useful agricultural product rather than allowing it to decompose on beaches.
The proposed process involves collecting the seaweed before decomposition, treating it to address accumulated salt and heavy metals, and combining it with green waste and biochar to produce a soil amendment.
Dancause also emerged as the public favourite in the category.
The public vote in the Living Sea category went to Taiwan’s Ya-Han Tsao for the Ocean Shade Blanket, which uses natural grass mats to shade coral reefs from extreme heat. Field trials have recorded temperature reductions of between 1.5 and 3 degrees Celsius beneath the mats.
Abu Bakarr Bangura of Sierra Leone won the WaveMakers public vote with Coastal Watch Schools, a project that trains secondary school students to use drones to monitor coastal erosion and provide evidence to support local environmental decisions.
The ceremony, held at AltaSea in the Port of Los Angeles, California, also featured a screening of Haagua, an Indigenous surf film by Native Like Water, and an exhibition involving 11 organisations working in ocean conservation, education and community action.
Nearly 4,000 people watched the event through a YouTube livestream, which also enabled international viewers to participate in the public vote.
OceanLove founder Ilco van der Linde said the record applications demonstrated the demand for platforms that give grassroots innovators opportunities to develop their ideas.
“When we started, people asked whether there were really enough ocean ideas out there to fill an award. This year we read 487 of them, from 91 countries. The ideas were never the scarce thing — the platform was,” he said.
The organisation is also developing an impact report, The Heartbeat of Change, identifying 11 major themes and 43 subcategories emerging from this year’s applications, including ocean literacy, ecosystem restoration, pollution, climate change, technology and the blue economy.
OceanLove said it plans to connect projects working in similar areas to facilitate knowledge-sharing, exchange of technology and collaboration to expand their impact.
Founded in 2021 by van der Linde and Egyptian freediver Raghda Ezzeldin, the non-profit operates through a network of 30 country ambassadors. Nigeria is represented in the OceanLove ambassador network by Anthony Akpan, President of the Pan African Vision for the Environment (PAVE), who serves as OceanLove’s country ambassador, promoting ocean conservation and grassroots environmental initiatives in Nigeria. He initiative is endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030).