As a measurement system, as a way to help with carbon offsetting or as a means for capturing funds that contribute to stopping the climate crisis. Blockchain technology is becoming a useful tool for preserving biodiversity. Transparency when safeguarding nature is always beneficial.
Since 1500, 7.5% to 13% of all life on the planet has gone extinct, more than 150,000 species of the 2 million we know about. Preserving biodiversity has become an imperative in the first third of the 21st century, where mitigating the climate emergency is already a priority. Can blockchain technology help us preserve nature before we exceed the limits of the planet, as set by scientists?
The first benefit of the blockchain to protect biodiversity is that it provides an accounting system, not too different from how atmospheric carbon, water scarcity or the cost of cleaning nitrates from a crop field are already measured. “Transparency, involvement and responsibility are important to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” notes the World Economic Forum when proposing blockchain as a model to help meet the goals subscribed to by 193 member states of the United Nations.
When a kilo of sugar is worth a certain number of euros on the market, it's easy to do an approximate valuation of the cost of losing a bamboo forest. But how do you assign a value to a mangrove forest and its services as a breakwater or platform to absorb the impact of hurricanes? How much is a bee worth if it doesn’t produce honey? How much is a monarch butterfly, whose numbers have gone down by 90% in two decades, worth?
Another way to measure
A recent analysis of more than 50,000 scientific publications, policy documents and indigenous sources of knowledge has confirmed that the system for evaluating or valuing the ecosystem is distorted. When we measure the ecosystem in monetary units or material values (commodities), it’s impossible to meet biodiversity goals. We need another way to measure, another scale and another technology.
At the end of the last decade, the Australian CommBank (Commonwealth Bank) put forth an interesting idea: a new market that seeks to protect and preserve nature. The idea is simple: issue biotokens to people who preserve an area, which can be redeemed for money on the market.
To date, Payment for Environmental Services (PES) has been a success throughout Europe, parts of China, the African green barrier, etc. For example, these incentives for farmers and landowners have managed to restore tropical forests in Costa Rica. And in Brazil, it would be cheaper to keep 80% of the Amazon rainforest within conservation areas—between 1.7 and 2.8 billion US dollars—than the cost that cutting it down would represent for the population.
In Namibia, the WWF Wildlife Credits project provides direct payments to people in communal lands to leave wildlife as it is. Payment is subject to measurable performance and goals, such as sightings of certain species, so there are control mechanisms in place.
In 2021, an interesting auction took place in South Africa. A rhinoceros horn was sold for approximately 6800 dollars. However, the good news is in the details and in the how: the rhino horn sold is a virtual replica of the original, which belonged to a dead rhino. The real horn is under heavy guard, and the payment was transferred to the Black Rock Private Rhinoceros Reserve.
There were already rhino bonds in 2019, but now, with the use of blockchain NFT technology (non-fungible tokens), these types of protectionist campaigns are absolutely traceable. If the current owner of the horn’s NFT decided to sell it in the future, the reserve would receive a portion of the transaction. Speculation in service to environmental protection.
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