Open Source Forest – Getting to the Root of the Problem with Biodiversity. Allocation of forest where it's needed the most.

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Hugo Vieira

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

hugoangv@gmail.com

Additional applicants

Francisco d'Orey

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

12

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.” .

No dependencies.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

Project will be fully open source.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Other

[METADATA] SDG rating

SDG goals:

• End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
• Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
• Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
• Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

 

SDG subgoals:

• By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management
• By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities
• Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning
• Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
• By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements
• By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally
• By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world
• By 2030, ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide benefits that are essential for sustainable development
• Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species
• Promote fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and promote appropriate access to such resources, as internationally agreed
• By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies and accounts
• Mobilize and significantly increase financial resources from all sources to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and ecosystems
• By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment
• By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality

 

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

• Forest area as a proportion of total land area
• Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem type
• Progress towards sustainable forest management
• Coverage by protected areas of important sites for mountain biodiversity
• Mountain Green Cover Index
• Official development assistance on conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity; and (b) revenue generated and finance mobilized from biodiversity-relevant economic instruments
• Red List Index

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

THE PROBLEM

The European Environment Agency (EEA) recently estimated that over 80% of Europe's natural habitats are degraded and missing biodiversity. 

European ecosystems are in urgent need of concerted restoration efforts both inside existing designated protected areas but also outside these spaces, such as in managed forests, agricultural lands, seas, and urban areas. 

Restoring damaged rivers, lakes, wetlands, forests, grasslands, marine habitats and other ecosystems would not only improve the overall resilience and quality of nature in Europe, but would bring many broader societal benefits. For example, the health of habitats for pollinators, such as bees and beetles, is critical for long-term food security in Europe. The condition of forests and wetlands is vital for climate change mitigation, and healthy ecosystems also provide better protection from extreme weather events and pollution.

(information from the EEA's briefing on "The importance of restoring nature in Europe").

Almost every project that focus on increasing biodiversity or on carbon offset, focus on increasing forest spaces in developing countries, although those are usually the countries not responsible for most carbon emissions. Also, modern agricultural practices tend to decrease space that was occupied by native plants and was once used by animal and insect species as a refuge. Since land is usually more expensive in developed countries, land owners seek to maximize profit per square meter, offsetting their carbon emissions to under developed countries. Even if it is compensated elsewhere, this creates a lack of biodiversity where it is actually needed (As reported by the EEA).

OUR APPROACH

Our focus is to create a mycelium of a decentralized network of micro-forests that are present where biodiversity is actually missing and is needed. These micro-forests will also be seeded with local natural mushroom mycelium to act not only as a symbiont in root development, but also to provide local populations with edible mushrooms that were once traditional to these areas. Also, a great number of the animal and insect species are natural predators of pests and plant diseases and could help in reducing the application of pesticides in modern agriculture.

These micro-forests would be a safe haven to birds, insects and plants that are becoming more and more scarce in developed countries. The implementation of water reservoirs, together with local species will also become important fire barriers to today's more frequent wildfires. We aim to create a replicable open-source model, that will be community built and can be implemented in several countries with the same success rate, depending on simple solutions for micro water management, natural native plant selection and priority to species on the Red List Index, and where everyone can play an important role from individuals to companies wanting to offset their carbon emissions in their own area of influence, contrasting with current greenwashing options.

Furthermore, by creating the plan with exclusively native trees, we will select species that exhibit greater resilience against wildfires. While these trees alone cannot halt the spread of fires, they act as a vegetal barrier, effectively impeding the rapid advancement of burning areas. Remarkably, these tree species possess the ability to regenerate and flourish as green plants in the following year. Ingeniously, our team is also designing solutions to extract water from the air. Yes, you read that correctly! A substantial amount of freshwater exists in the atmosphere at any given time, though it remains imperceptible to us. Nonetheless, simple yet effective techniques are being deployed worldwide to capture and utilize this airborne water for irrigation, human and animal consumption. In arid and sun-drenched regions, these innovative methods can accelerate forest growth and ensure the well-being of diverse plant and animal species.

THE PLAN

The Micro Forest Open-Source Plan will be available for all, to use, adapt and reshape as we get more input and technology into it. Our vision is to cultivate an inclusive ecosystem where anyone can contribute. Within the second year of projects underway we want to address governments to take our model as an inspiration for urban degraded areas such as industrial wastelands or urban plots with no possible development for construction. We aim to get to the maximum potential of the plan by managing the inputs from the Cardano Network as the projects are developed.

Because it is an open-source plan, any Cardano Member will have access to share it around the globe. This is a global solution for a global problem.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

PROJECT CONTEXT

Our whole project focuses on 3 main targets. Developing the replicable model, implementing the support NFT (MYCELL) base for acquiring and maintaining the micro-forests, and creating the Mycelium Foundation that will acquire land and maintain these micro-forests. The Mycelium Foundation will also be responsible for developing other environmental and technological projects in the near future.

FIRST TARGET

The first main target is this current project. This will be the replicable model that will receive feedback not only from the Cardano community, but from all stakeholders that might be interested or provide essential feedback to the project. This might also function as a bridge from a otherwise non Cardano aware community to a possible interest in the network.

We will create a plan to implement these micro-forests that are havens of biodiversity to co-exist with modern agricultural practices. This plan will be open to receive community feedback and improvement, and will be open to be used by anyone, anywhere in the world.

The plan will include what plant species to use in each country/region, how to better use them or which ones do better together. For example, wild asparagus grow well and in symbiosis when next to a Quercus suber stem. On the other hand, Rosmarinus officinalis might prevent other bush species from growing near its roots.

Also information about bird nesting. In one more example the pine processionary is a major economic pest in coniferous forests in Europe, where the caterpillar is responsible for most of the defoliation seen in coniferous trees. These caterpillars can completely defoliate trees if large numbers are present. This could compromise the attempt to create a thriving forest within the first years. However, there is a species of bird that is a natural predator of this pest. The great tit (Parus major, yes it's a bird, not a beast) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae and we can build nests with specific dimensions that only this bird can use, so he will seek these places to nest, and become a natural keeper of our forest against that pest.

This plan is meant to be implemented in every country's conditions, so there might be some places that have a more limited availability of water for forest growth in the first few years. With that in mind, we will also share practices to capture water to help these micro-forest thrive in the first years, as well as other useful information to implement these forests that will insure the success of replicating this model.

All this information will be developed, available and maintained by the community, NGO's and interested stakeholders.

SECOND TARGET

The second main target will be the MyCELL Marketplace. It will be 100% dependable on NMKR to create a simple and working solution for the NFT based support community to the project. You can find more information and support it here.

THIRD TARGET

The third main target, the Mycelium Foundation will have its main goal in implementing this network of micro-forests and developing other environmental and technological solutions based on the Cardano blockchain.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

The Open-Source Forest will be on a public open-source repository. This enables developers and researchers to access and contribute to the project, fostering collaboration and further innovation.The creation of an open-source plan for these descentralized forests will have all of Cardano's interested network, working with us to find the best solutions for each project. This has the power to give us very reliable feedback from each participant right from the start.

We will measure in numbers:

1 - The number of different Cardano community groups or individuals engaged in the creation of the Open Source Decentralized Forest plan.

2 - The level of engagement of each participant, measured by time invested and input for each stage.

3 - Number downloads of the Open Source Decentralized Forest plan.

4 - Number of microforests implemented with the same Decentralized Forest Plan.

5 – Number of branches, pull requests and other interactions with the chosen platform.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

Website: Our dedicated website will provide comprehensive information about the Plan for Decentralized Forest. This page will be as a central hub for posting updates, reports on our progress and relevant news.

Social Media and Blog Posts: Social media platforms will be a stage one primary means of communication, to share project updates, milestones, and significant achievements.

GitHub: Our open-source plan for micro-forest implementations will be available on GitHub for use and community contributions.

We hope with these channels to reach a broader audience and engage with the Cardano community, influencers and strong climate change actors.

The purpose of this plan is to start using it with the other activities we will develop in parallel to implement this idea into the real world. The NFT MYCELL and the Mycelium Foundation.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Our ability to carry out this project is justified on the fact that we are a cohesive team with members that understand and work closely with the CO2 markets, forest and rural development and sustainability, but also active members in the Cardano community and with all the required technological expertise.

All our team members have made their professional lives working in top companies and are recognised as experts in their field of action.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

As stated before, this project is part of a broader approach to bringing ecosystems back to pollution sources and places where biodiversity is scarce.

So the specific goals to this project in particular are:

• Develop a replicable model of micro-forest implementation in developed countries;
• Provide tools that can be used to apply this model in any country;
• Provide instructions regarding plant species to use, water capturing techniques to make available for plants in the early stage;
• Involve the community in replicating this model.

As this is a scientific based project, the feasibility of it will be determined by using and filtering correct sources of information provided either by our internal team or by the community. We count on the expertise of our team members, but also from stakeholders to ensure data validation.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Full extensive description of the milestones and outputs is shown on the link on the bottom of this section.

But here's a brief description of the milestones and activities for this project. Since our focus is to restore forest, our milestones are named over trees and bushes native to Europe:

1. Lavandula pedunculate => to be delivered in the first 1/4 of the implementation year
2. Branding and design => The key activities are related to branding and design of website, logo and branding package;
3. r&D=>
4. List of local plant species and suppliers
5. List of tasks to implement micro-forest
6. List of water capture solutions
7. List of legal issues to address
8. Rosmarinus officinalis => to be delivered in the second 1/4 of the implementation year
9. Forest project => Github platform for community feedback and open-source forest project for 1 country;
10. Metric definition => While land purchase and implementation will be assured by the model NFT Forest Sharing, maintenance will be assured by the generation of carbon credits. In this stage we will define not only the carbon credits for voluntary or regulated markets, but also the biodiversity impact in the area where the micro-forest is implemented. This should output a ready to use model to assess the micro-forest impact in every place where it is implemented. In this stage we will define the key values and tasks to insure carbon credit certification, main markets of interest, and a easy to use method to insure certification.
11. Myrtus communis => to be delivered in the third 1/4 of the implementation year
12. Forest multi-country plan => In this stage we intend to have received feedback to insure the replication of the model on at least 3 countries within the European Union, USA, China, etc.
13. Pinus pinaster => to be delivered in the fourth 1/4 of the implementation year
14. Model replication => The final draft will include instructions so that anyone wishing to replicate this model of micro-forest can also use our marketplace, developed specifically for this purpose. This will insure greater success in world-wide replication of the model with economic sustainability.
15. Stages after this fund:
16. Quercus suber => second year
17. International Model Replication.

Please find the detailed steps and milestones for the implementation of the whole plan, including the Open Source Forest, Mycell Micro-Forest NFT and Mycelium Foundation in the following link.

Full project Steps, Milestones and Outputs

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Full extensive description of the milestones and outputs is shown on the link on the bottom of this section.

But here's a brief description of the milestones and activities for this project. Since our focus is to restore forest, our milestones are named over trees and bushes native to Europe:

1. Lavandula pedunculate => to be delivered in the first 1/4 of the implementation year
2. Branding and design => The key activities are related to branding and design of website, logo and branding package;
3. r&D=>
4. List of local plant species and suppliers
5. List of tasks to implement micro-forest
6. List of water capture solutions
7. List of legal issues to address
8. Rosmarinus officinalis => to be delivered in the second 1/4 of the implementation year
9. Forest project => Github platform for community feedback and open-source forest project for 1 country;
10. Metric definition => While land purchase and implementation will be assured by the model NFT Forest Sharing, maintenance will be assured by the generation of carbon credits. In this stage we will define not only the carbon credits for voluntary or regulated markets, but also the biodiversity impact in the area where the micro-forest is implemented. This should output a ready to use model to assess the micro-forest impact in every place where it is implemented. In this stage we will define the key values and tasks to insure carbon credit certification, main markets of interest, and a easy to use method to insure certification.
11. Myrtus communis => to be delivered in the third 1/4 of the implementation year
12. Forest multi-country plan => In this stage we intend to have received feedback to insure the replication of the model on at least 3 countries within the European Union, USA, China, etc.
13. Pinus pinaster => to be delivered in the fourth 1/4 of the implementation year
14. Model replication => The final draft will include instructions so that anyone wishing to replicate this model of micro-forest can also use our marketplace, developed specifically for this purpose. This will insure greater success in world-wide replication of the model with economic sustainability.
15. Stages after this fund:
16. Quercus suber => second year
17. International Model Replication.

Please find the detailed steps and milestones for the implementation of the whole plan, including the Open Source Forest, Mycell Micro-Forest NFT and Mycelium Foundation in the following link.

Full project Steps, Milestones and Outputs

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The costs breakdown was calculated with a thorough research about the time involved for each stage and the general rates for these services in the industry.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept