Proposal Title: Growing trees in the Columbian Amazon
Authors: Drea Burbank, MD
Date: Apr 6th 2022
How will your proposal, if activated, benefit BitDAO? You want to create and partner with specialized autonomous entities in areas of high experimentation. We offer a real-world project that extends BitDAO into multiple sectors that are traditionally underrepresented in blockchain but ideally suited to tokenization and DAOs (green-carbon, Indigenous governance, biodiversity, and international micropayments from large entities to individual farmers).
What are the projected outcomes? The most developed nations will easily be able to buy green-carbon credits from individual farmers in the least-developed nations. Blockchain enables these parties to transact directly, with high-trust, to the benefit of collective Indigenous governance structures. Trees globally, are worth more than cows locally, and we can prove it to an individual farmer with a mobile app and some micropayments.
How long will it take to complete your proposed changes? Two years.
Who is involved? Todreamalife consulting agency, ACR carbon registry, and a group of Indigenous farmers and Taitas in the Columbian Amazon. (Project can easily seed to Ecuador and Venezuela) . Need BitDAO to help us with the technical execution (see below).
What are the milestones?
Register Todreamalife (or 501(c)3 nonprofit subsidiary) on the ACR green carbon registry for reforestation projects (6 months)
Enroll >100 hectares of Indigenous farming lands for reforestation (1 year)
Build a token + physical tag that adequately represents one Amazonian tree in the decentralized economy (6 months).
Build a decentralized mobile app that adequately captures the growth of individual trees from month to month (and can replace industry-standard validation which is drone-operated lidar). (1 year)
Build a decentralized mobile DAO software that the local indigenous tribes can use to self-manage undeveloped conserved jungle. (2 years)
Build a consumer web interface that organizations and individuals can use to purchase and monitor monthy carbon credits (2 years).
Specifications:
Timeline
Year 1: Build real-world collaborations and collectives, design and release token, and plant trees on 100 hectares with monthly seed-funding and micropayments to farmers.
Year 2: Build and deploy mobile management software to manage collectively-held lands and payments, and mobile management software to validate tree growth. Launch platform for purchase of carbon credits from public and large corporate entities. Establish financial managment of token to prevent devaluation below floor.
Budget
Need help with an adequate budget for development costs.
Have budget and contracting entity for sustainable monthly carbon payments to farmers >100 hectares.
Estimate $500k USD in development cost to become self-sustaining in 2 years.
Add technical details and/or links to source documentation.
-LIDAR industry standard What is lidar?)%20to%20the%20Earth.
Include any other relevant details on how this proposal will be accomplished
Todreamalife consulting agency will provide technical expertise, financial oversight, and US-based asseguration.
We are creating a US-based 501(c)3 to administer project funds and intermediate payments.
The token will be managed by a UAE-based entity (tax and securities purposes)
For development period we will have one decision-maker, post development if the financial model is sustainable we will begin transitioning oversight to DAO.
Next Steps? If this proposal is accepted, what are the immediate action items?
Consultation with specialized blockchain development group(s) who can work on this project for the next 2 years including design of token, market stablization, and mobile development.
Seed funding to pay for tree-planting (not covered by current credits), front-end development costs, international indigenous legal representation, and on-the-ground staff.
Final establishment of 501(c)3, Dubai entity, and contracts between them.
Review Process
The BIT Community and delegates might discuss and verify the following before considering proposals.
Personnel
Is the team credible?
Are they qualified to do this work?
Technical
Does the proposal make sense technically?
Does this fit into, or compliment, other projects in the BitDAO ecosystem?
@ Maty, I’m so serious! Thank you for noticing. @ Monkey, thanks for asking, the plan is to hold initial project funds under a US company for four reasons:
We can create long-term sustainability and public buy-in with US public donations (including crypto) under 501(c)3 status. The nonprofit subsidizing initial reforestation and recruitment of farmers is Empulsive Ink (https://www.empulsive.ink) which accepts crypto donations.
Micropayments to Columbian farmers, can be done more reliably and cheaply through the US via bill.com than they can from Columbia. I can pay a rural farmer as an international contractor directly into their bank account for $1 per payment avoiding all middlemen. The LLC processing micropayments is Todreamalife (https://www.todreamalife.com) although we will certainly give farmers the option to get paid in crypto instead. (It’s going to take some time, and on-the-ground success, to explain crypto to them.)
Green-carbon credit sales are to institutional buyers who are more likely to transact through the US. The ACR carbon registry is the most scientifically reputable of carbon sequestration options and it’s a US-based institution. In short, sales are a different problem than sequestration and a US company is vastly more likely to get true international market pricing than a Columbian one.
Columbian company formation takes significant time and is legally less secure. We plan to use a percentage of project funds/revenue to create a Columbian company, administered by a Columbian-owned DAO, owned by Indigenous Columbian Taitas. This company will buy native forested Columbian jungle, retain it under a biosphere as a public trust, sell biosphere credits, and commercialize plant knowledge (if desired). It just takes a lot longer to set up, and the Taitas want to own it themselves with “no strings attached” so the legal structure has to be very sound off the get-go. We can get started now with the US companies and take our time creating the Columbian one so it’s fully independent, but funds can’t be misused.
These guys have a successful and long-running collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund to protect an endangered bear in the region so they’ve proven themselves reliable long-term partners. It’s just a long way off the centralized banking/business path, which is one reason it’s ideal for the crypto community. Most of the farmers have no bank accounts and don’t use the local currency to transact. They are more likely to adopt crypto if it can be proven reliable because they are already underserved by traditional banking structures.
Hi all, sorry for the radio silence. We’ve been hard at work refining the technical parts of the proposal (government, tokenomics, scientific validation of carbon, mobile dev in the DAO space, LoRa mesh networks, and expanding the team… its dizzying!).
Here is a recording of the 15-min presentation we shared in the AEmbassy meeting last week to describe the project, answer some of the questions here, and explain why we think it fits into BitDAOs goals.
Just an update. The soft proposal vote above is still mostly positive. We’d like to move ahead with a full submission on Snapshot. but don’t have the BIT or a delegate yet. If anyone knows someone who would want to partner or sponsor us we’ll move ahead with the full proposal.
In other news:
We’ve been approved to form the digital ledger company (UAE)
We’ve found our first international platform seller (desert trees in UAE and China).
Our token release is tentatively planned for October
We’re in discussions with UN-REDD+ and Stanford for silviculture expertise and research partnership.
DM me on Discord or Telegram to discuss. Always happy to answer questions.
Now essentially BitDao is an investment portfolio designed to derisk Web3. I think that carbon offsets are a reasoned foray for the portfolio because Web3 enables offset transactions that could not be done anywhere else. This is solving two massive global problems at once.
It’s solving crypto’s value problem and it ties that solution to the emerging international environmental crisis and 40-year timescales (industry standard for tree).
It’s solving the Paris Accord and UN-REDD+ international governance problems with transacting carbon offsets in the developing world. (Atmospheric carbon has at little regard for international borders as cryptocurrencies do).
Will share pitch deck later today and still available for commentary or crique!
Yes I think that Web3 needs to colonize more real-world economies with long-term potential. Digital economies are useful for fast forays, but long-term investment funds like BitDAO need to think more widely. The perfect middle-ground is emerging economies where value hasn’t been digitized yet. Then you stop preaching to the choir, and start dominating a sellers market.
We’re in discussions with an algorithmic trading platform to design release of Carbon and Tree tokens, currently planned for Fall 2022.
Partnerships:
We have a partnership with a wildire-sensor company that can predict wildfires on plots
We’ve discussed the plan with our indigenous partners to positive feedback
Legislation:
We’ve been in discussions with two Washington DC lobbyists who work on behalf of Web3 and international carbon to see if there is synergy with apolitical organizations. Specifically approval of the California Tropical Forest Standard
We’re monitoring the Columbian election, but have also decentralized plots to planters in the UAE, China, and India. In Columbia, our ideal goal would be approval of tree-plantations as proof of land-use (currently deforesting and raising cows is one method of establishing land ownership).
Software:
We’ve been refining the software budget which is currently: $100k DAO, $250k mobile app, $200k web interface. We’re actively seeking quotes from vetted dev groups and open to recommendations.
Based on expert feedback, we are inclined toward Polygon over AVAX but still open to feedback
Investors:
We’ve had some nibbles on submitting a full BitDAO proposal but no bites.
We’ve had interest from more investors and it looks like it might be a round.
Could we start with recos so I can do some diligence? We co-develop all our projects so want to make sure it’s a good fit long term.
Happy to look at international sellers who are respected too. Just send them to Savimbo.com/sellers need more intel on ecology in that region - I hear mangrove plantations are highly desirable.
