Soneva’s groundbreaking Coral Restoration Program in the Maldives has been endorsed by the United Nations and listed on UNESCO’s Ocean Decade platform, recognising it as a global model for reef regeneration and sustainable marine science.
2 minIn a landmark moment for marine conservation, the Soneva Foundation’s Coral Restoration Program has received official endorsement from the United Nations and been listed on the UNESCO Ocean Decade website — an international recognition of its pioneering work in large-scale reef restoration.
Based in the Maldives and operating from Soneva Fushi’s AquaTerra science centre, the program is now the region’s largest coral restoration facility. Combining advanced marine biology with local collaboration, it has redefined how the tourism sector can contribute meaningfully to ocean health.
What sets the program apart is its blend of innovation and scale. The facility includes a Coral Spawning and Rearing Lab—Maldives’ first of its kind—replicating natural reef conditions to stimulate coral reproduction. Thirty micro-fragmentation tanks further accelerate coral growth, enabling up to 150,000 coral fragments to be produced and replanted on damaged reefs each year.
Since launching in 2022, Soneva’s coral team has relocated more than 31,000 coral colonies and fragments from threatened areas, establishing a thriving coral hub in the Indian Ocean.
he initiative is managed by Soneva Conservation, a Maldivian NGO set up by the Soneva Foundation, and forms part of the group’s broader sustainability strategy.
“This milestone is a testament to the scientific rigour and community-driven ethos at the heart of our work,” Dr Johanna Leonhardt, Soneva’s Coral Project Manager, said. “It validates the potential of hospitality to lead ocean regeneration at scale.”
Beyond science, the program engages governments, NGOs, research institutions and the wider tourism industry—demonstrating how cross-sector partnerships can drive real environmental impact.
The UN recognition now positions the project as a beacon for similar initiatives globally, reinforcing the Maldives’ role as both a luxury destination and a marine conservation leader.
The Soneva Foundation’s wider environmental efforts include carbon mitigation projects, reforestation, and waste-to-wealth innovation. As part of the Pallion group, Soneva continues to redefine what it means to be a responsible luxury brand.
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Meta is betting on a human-first AI future, but growing legal battles and declining public trust are putting Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to the test.
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“Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Call us whatever the hell you want, but we’re betting on people, and we like those odds. The future is for everyone.”
That ad copy is from the voice-over of a July Meta Platforms META -3.38%.
spot that’s been part of a public-relations blitz to position Meta as the humanist AI company. The message was undercut by the ad’s inclusion of David Bowie’s “Five Years,” a brooding 1972 song about an impending apocalypse. But this week CEO Mark Zuckerberg left no ambiguity, publishing a 6,500-word manifesto—about 10 times the length of this newsletter—with a title that echoed the ad: “The Future is for Everyone.”
That seems to be Meta’s new tagline. In light of sinking public opinion and the company’s thousands of lawsuits from states, school districts, parents, and users, Meta’s public relations have been defensive. This push represents a return to offense, with a chance to distinguish Meta’s approach to AI from other labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX SPCX +9.65%.
“It is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future.”
Zuckerberg frames what sort of future we build with AI as the central issue of our time. “We believe that delivering superintelligence to everyone is the way to answer this question,” he says. “This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before.”
The flood of words belies the situation on the ground in mid-2026. Americans, at least, have a love-hate affair with social media. A November Pew Research Center poll reported that 71% of U.S. adults used Facebook, and 51% used Instagram. Worldwide, 3.6 billion people use at least one Meta app every day.
But in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in July and August, 61% of respondents said they wanted more government oversight of social media, and two-thirds supported laws to keep children under 16 years old off the platforms. When it comes to Meta in particular, in the 2026 Axios Harris 100, an annual poll about corporate reputation, Meta placed 96th out of 100. It’s only above two other social media companies, Chinese ultracheap retailer Temu, and Spirit Airlines, a defunct air carrier. Regarding ethics, Meta came in last, and it was only ahead of TikTok in trust.
The steady drip of headlines in the teen social media trials isn’t helping. Last week, Meta lost a judgment in New Mexico state court that raised their liability in that relatively small jurisdiction to nearly $1 billion dollars. On Wednesday, jury selection began for a federal case with four states suing Meta over addictive product design, and false marketing that said its platforms were safe for teenagers. In July, Meta claimed that the states are asking for a total of $1.4 trillion in damages, in addition to design changes in the apps. This is part of a multidistrict litigation, where thousands of federal trials with social media defendants are coordinated in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ district courthouse in Oakland, Calif.
There is a separate such group of thousands of cases in California state court, mostly with individual plaintiffs. The steady drip of bad headlines from the courts will continue unless Meta decides to settle en masse.
Meanwhile, in the second quarter, Meta booked “$2.40 billion of charges related to legal proceedings,” according to its quarterly filing. That may be just the beginning.
Zuckerberg spent 6,500 words getting his utopian message out, but I can sum it up in two: Trust us. The evidence is that Meta has a long way to go to win back that trust.
