Greetings, my dear Polkadot community!
We are thrilled to introduce the Foresta Protocol, an innovative project aimed at transforming forest conservation through the power of blockchain technology, collaborative AI/ML-driven data analysis, and fintech integrations. Our mission is to create a transparent, efficient, and scalable ecosystem for carbon credit issuance, trading, and management. Considering carbon credits are not new and often seen through the lens of greenwashing, we are looking to build validation protocols across the lifecycle of environmental projects at the community governance level, as well as a decentralized network of forest and climate science professionals at the academic level validating the lifecycle of conservation efforts.
Project Overview
The Foresta Protocol is designed to tackle the pressing issue of climate change by leveraging cutting-edge technology to support forest conservation efforts. Here’s a brief overview of what we aim to achieve:
Empowering Communities for Sustainable Forest Conservation
- Vision: To redefine global conservation efforts by integrating Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) principles with collaborative AI/ML technologies for decentralized Measuring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV) of issued carbon credit certificates. How? Protocol fees will be allocated towards a common treasury with the mandate to fund and support forest communities worldwide, get certified, and issue Foresta blockchain-based carbon credits. Pioneering a model of a Decentralized Sovereign Nature Wealth Fund, governed by the FRST tokenholders, in order to fund new forest futures carbon credit projects from protocol’s revenue.
How It Works
The Foresta Protocol operates on several core principles and technological innovations:
- foresta-collectives pallet:
- This is the mechanism that will facilitate transparent, direct participation in conservation efforts, providing full transparency to investors on ongoing project operations.
- Each member will have a public profile where the internal management of the reserve is open for radical transparency - something carbon credit markets entirely lack, as they often rely on shady intermediaries.
- Each issued carbon credit project will have a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO-like) structure, in which participants are able to manage their day-to-day operations, with on-chain execution of natural reserve-specific treasury funds towards proposals.
- Upon submission, approval, and issuance of credits, each member will have an allocated share upon which sales are redirected to. These shares also represent voting power in the collective.
- AI/ML Data Lake:
- If foresta-collectives allow for the verification of the politics of a given project, our AI/ML Data Lake will provide scientific proof of the actual conservation and state of the forest on the ground.
- Through AI/ML algorithms for dynamic dMRV, we can ensure accurate and verifiable conservation outcomes.
- By establishing a marketplace for climate and AI algorithms, we can foster innovation and precision in climate modeling for carbon credit lifecycle evidence.
- Developing tools for forest and conservation professionals to validate ongoing conservation efforts, we can avoid greenwashing of carbon offerings in the platform.
- Fintech Integration:
- Politics checked and conservation outcomes verified, we aim to develop a fintech SDK (v1. XCM v5) for ‘atomic carbon retirements’, linking everyday financial transactions directly to carbon credit retirements as donations.
- Thus promoting sustainable finance by enabling the option for users and dapp/appchain developers to contribute to conservation efforts with every transaction.
- And last but not least, boosting demand for carbon credit’s issuance with direct payments to foresta-collectives.
Why is this the right approach?
As such, even when blockchain and carbon credits are meant for each other, the industry still has not developed a protocol that solves for predatory market practices, greenwashing at the project level, and project-lifecycle validation proofs of positive climate action.
By combining the aforementioned technologies on our runtime, we will be able to provide an ecosystem level toolkit to bring blockchain and carbon credits together alongside forest communities with full-transparency - improving upon existing solutions and issues that have arisen from this. A good example of the current case study we are trying to solve can be found in the following video:
What happened when Crypto entered the Carbon Markets? - Context
Ecosystem Fit
Polkadot has been reported as being the ‘greenest’ blockchain. Still, there are no active carbon credits that can be publicly traded on the ecosystem.
The FORESTA PROTOCOL seamlessly integrates into the Polkadot ecosystem, leveraging its robust infrastructure to support carbon credits backed by decentralized governance and data analysis on-chain proofs across a given conservation project’s lifecycle. These tools will enable the creation of a protocol that goes beyond carbon credit issuance, opening the door for Real-World Assets (RWAs) with ongoing verification to fight greenwashing critiques at the grassroots level.
Our project is designed to meet the needs of various stakeholders, including:
- DEVELOPERS: Providing tools and infrastructure for integrating conservation efforts into blockchain applications.
- ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS: A transparent platform for managing and verifying conservation projects, with a full carbon credit engine for issuing, buying, selling and retiring carbon credits. Opening opportunities for climate professionals to fight greenwashing on-chain, which in turn unleashes the power of true decentralization.
- DATA SCIENTISTS: Incentive-alignment, where climate and data scientists can partner up with forest communities to provide scientific proofs and share revenue.
- FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS: Enabling sustainable finance options through our fintech SDK to bring increased demand for carbon credit sellers.
Current Progress
We have made significant strides in developing the core components of the Foresta Protocol in the past three months. Here’s a snapshot of our progress:
- Live Pitch on Polkadot North America Hackathon 2024 - organized by AngelHack: Link to Video
- PoC’s for carbon credit engine, AI/ML Data Lake, ‘Atomic Carbon Credit’ Retirements’ on XCM. Developed and awarded at:
- Encode Polkadot Hackathon
- Polkadot North America Hackathon (winner 2nd prize smart contracts)
- Consensus EasyA Hackathon (Phala and Acurast bounty winner).
- MVP for Foresta v1 being developed as part of Buildspace s5 planned for 6 weeks.
Coming Soon
Our roadmap for the coming months includes:
- Finalizing Foresta V1 Appchain on Tanssi.
- Finalizing the fintech SDK: Ensuring seamless integration with major financial platforms.
- Finalizing the AI/ML Data Lake: Creating an incentivized climate science and computing execution environment for climate science.
- Launching token and Foresta Nature Fund: 50% protocol fee’s directed towards this idea of a Decentralized Sovereign Nature Wealth Fund. Remainder goes to Foresta Labs for covering ongoing operation costs.
- Expanding community engagement: Fostering a vibrant network of conservation advocates and technology enthusiasts.
- Go-to Market Strategy on a Biodiversity Hotspot: Becoming the go-to platform for the soon to be legalized Carbon Credit Market in Ecuador, the single biodiversity hotspot where carbon credits are not legal. Foresta is currently advocating for its legalization with key partners.This is an exciting opportunity and the timing is just right for my home country to leapfrog to the cutting-edge of climate finance thanks to Foresta. Great advancements were born from Ecuador for ecological and biological thinking. That’s right, go ahead and ask Charles Darwin or Alexander Von Humbold (ok, since they are both dead, just ask ChatGPT about it).
- Scaling globally: Partnering with environmental organizations and climate science organizations to leverage blockchain interoperability and maximize our impact.
FORESTA PROTOCOL represents a groundbreaking approach to forest conservation, combining the best of blockchain, AI, and fintech to create a sustainable future. Together, we can make a real impact on climate change and environmental conservation through a pioneering decentralized platform for our shared decentralized future.
Thank you for your support and interest in Foresta. We look forward to collaborating with the Polkadot community, from which we have been a part of since the ‘Hello World!’ event in 2020, to achieve our shared goals.