‘Cloud-milking’: the zero-energy technique keeping young trees alive

The project that began in the Canary Islands mimics the way leaves capture water droplets from fog in order to produce water

They call it cloud milking, a zero-energy technique to extract water from fog that is revolutionising the recovery of forests devastated by fire and drought.

The idea began as a pilot project in the Canary Islands. The plan was to exploit the moisture-laden “sea of clouds” that hangs over the region in order to aid reforestation, and has since been extended to several other countries to produce drinking water, and to irrigate crops.